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-Copyright by Mrs. Decima Campbell Barclay. 

Alexander Campbell. 



The Story of a Century 



A Brief Historical Sketch and Exposition 

of the Religious Movement 

Inaugurated by 

Thomas and Alexander Campbell. 

1809—1909. 



/, 



By J. H. GARRISON, 



Editor of "The Christian-Evangelist. " 

C 



»^^« 



"Call to remembrance the former days, 
in which, after ye were enlightened, ye 
endured a great conflict of suffering." 

— Heb. 10:12. 



ST. LOUTS: 

CHEISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1909. 






Copyright, 1909. 

CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

ST. LOUIS, MO. 



V3 2 



s 



DEDICATION. 

To the Memory of One of the World's 
Great Reformers, 

Alexander Campbell, 

Who, in a time of religious indifference and sec- 
tarian strife, was catholic without being Roman, and 
protestant without being sectarian; who, seeing that 
union among Christians was essential to the world's 
conversion, saw, also, that a return to Christ and 
His Christianity was essential to union; who, 
maligned as a heretic and as a disturber of the estab- 
lished order of things by many in his day, will receive 
from posterity his vindication and be numbered with 
the world's immortals; whom not having seen we love 
for his character and his work's sake, this volume is 
affectionately dedicated by the author. 



CONTENTS. 
Chapter. Page. 

I— In the Fullness of Time , . . 15 

II — The Prime Mover . . 23 

III — How the Movement Originated 33 

IV — Some Guiding Principles . . . ; 43 

V— The Chief Actor 53 

VI — Application of Principles 63 

VII — A Change of Leaders ■ 73 

VIII— Learners of Christ 83 

IX — Union with the Baptists , 91 

X— Mr. Campbell's Task Outlined 99 

XI — Some of Mr. Campbell's Co-Laborers 109 

XII— A Tributary Movement 123 

XIII — From Darkness to Light — A Great Revival 131 

XIV — Disciples and Christians Unite 141 

XV— The Principles of Unity Vindicated 149 

XVI — Education and Organization 159 

XVII — Rapid Numerical Increase 169 

XVIII — Some Personal Factors in the Movement 179 

XIX— Hindrances Without . . . . = 191 

XX— Hindrances Without (Continued.) 203 

XXI— Hindrances Without (Continued.) 213 

XXII— Hindrances Within 223 

XXIII— Hindrances Within (Continued) 231 

XXIV— The Remedy 241 

XXV — Some Things Accomplished . 251 

XXVI— Some Unfinished Tasks 261 

XXVII— The Outlook. 271 






"For in those dark and iron days of old, 
Arose, amid the pigmies of their age, 

Minds of a massive and gigantic mold, 

Whom we must measure as the Cretan sage 

Measured the pyramids of ages past, 

By the far-reaching shadows that they cast." 






A FOREWORD, 

This is not a history, properly speaking, of the 
people best known throughout the world as Disci- 
ples of Christ, nor of the current Reformation which 
they advocate. Others have written such histories, 
and still other historians of the future will write more 
fully of that movement whose beginning is one of the 
most notable events of the past century. The pres- 
ent effort is far less ambitious than that. It is an 
attempt to draw a sketch in boldest outline — a sort 
of bird's-eye view— -of the religious movement whose 
Centennial we are to celebrate next autumn. The 
intention is to present just enough of the chief facts, 
persons, and principles of the movement, to furnish 
an outline study for those who have not hitherto 
acquainted themselves with its character and purpose. 
The details may be filled in later by those who wish 
to make a more thorough study of the subject. It 
often helps readers to get a clearer mental grasp of 
the great outstanding facts of history and the prin- 
ciples which underlie them, not to obscure these im- 
portant matters by too many unimportant details. 
These may be acquired when the leading facts and 
guiding principles are mastered. 

The chief motive in such a sketch as is proposed 
above, at this time, is to win a hearing from busy 



The Story of a Century. 

men who, though not sufficiently interested to under- 
take the reading of an elaborate history, would, 
nevertheless, read a shorter sketch for the sake of 
having at least a general knowledge of a religious 
movement that has made such rapid growth and has 
exerted so great an influence on the religious thought 
and life of our times. It is believed, too, that the 
time is propitious for such a hearing. Our Centen- 
nial celebration, which is approaching, is sure to at- 
tract the attention of many people to our Reformatory 
movement, who have hitherto taken but little pains 
to understand its meaning and mission. To furnish 
such a brief statement and exposition of the move- 
ment and of the progress it has made during the cen- 
tury as will meet the demand of this class of readers, 
as well as of many among us who will not take time 
to read a more elaborate history, is the author's aim. 
We would cherish the hope, too, that many of these 
readers will become so interested as to seek further 
and more complete information than we shall under- 
take to furnish in this brief treatise. 

In carrying out this purpose, it will be necessary 
to make an exposition of the movement itself, as well 
as to state its leading facts and principles. This is 
more necessary, because, like every new movement 
in the history of the world, this Reformation has 
been misconceived and misrepresented so that many 

have a very false or inadequate view of its real char- 

—10— 



The Story of a Century. 

acterand purpose, and of the men who are its chief 
promoters. Not only has the movement been mis- 
understood by many on the outside, but even some 
of its professed advocates have so misconceived and 
misrepresented its spirit and purpose as to add to the 
confusion in the public mind regarding its evangel- 
ical character and its catholic scope and aim. The 
author can not hope to be able to give such an ex- 
position of its meaning as will command the approval 
of every type of mind among us, but he does hope to 
make such a statement as will represent the prevail- 
ing judgment and sentiment, not only of the leading 
minds among us, but of the great mass of our mem- 
bership. 

The author has a deep sense of his inability for 
so important a task as is here outlined, and it is 
only at the urgent solicitation of others that he has 
undertaken to prepare this condensed story of a cen- 
tury. He shall earnestly seek, and shall confidently 
expect to receive, the help and guidance of that 
illuminating Spirit, whose presence in the church 
and in the hearts of all true believers is the hope of 
all future growth and progress. 



—11- 



INTRODUCTION. 

There is an urgent and widespread demand for a popular 
history of the great religious movement known as the Current 
Reformation. A large and ever-increasing number of people 
wish information concerning its genesis and growth. This 
demand receives special emphasis at this time from the fact that 
the hundredth anniversary of this reformatory movement is to 
be celebrated in Pittsburgh in October of the present year (1909). 
c< The Story of a Century" was written in response to this 
demand. The timeliness of its appearance greatly enhances its 
value. 

The author is particularly well qualified to write such a his- 
tory. As the editor of a religious newspaper for forty years he 
has found it necessary to discuss the principles and objects and 
and results of the movement many times. This constant discus- 
sion has familiarized him with every phase of the subject. 

Richardson's "Memoirs of Alexander Campbell' ' will always 

have the greatest value. That work is a classic, and must be 

read by any one who wishes to acquaint himself thoroughly 

with the origin and progress of the Current Reformation during 

the first sixty years of its history. But the Memoirs are too 

elaborate for the general reader. Richardson wrote at such 

length that only scholars and specialists read his bulky and 

splendid volumes. 

—13— 



Introduction 

"The Story of a Century'* is a work of such compass that all 
who are interested in the subject of which it treats can find 
time to read it. The author has covered the ground covered by 
Richardson, though necessarily much more briefly, and has 
given an account of what has been accomplished during the last 
forty years, the period that has elapsed since Richardson 
wrote. 

The writer of this volume believes with all his heart in the 
fundamental principles of the current Reformation, and has con- 
tended for them with great ability throughout his entire ed- 
itorial career Moreover, he has unbounded admiration for the 
men and women who were the exponents and champions of 
those principles. He has written with the highest appreciation 
of the heroic pioneers and their successors; he honors the great 
men God raised up for the accomplishment of his own eternal 
purpose, and glories in their exploits and achievements. 

A new generation has grown up since Richardson published 
his immortal work. This new generation and the whole 
religious world should know about this movement that is now 
engaging the attention of mankind. If they will read "The 
Story of a Century" they will know far more than they now 
know. Those who are interested in the Kingdom of God will 
find this history far more fascinating and immeasurably more in- 
structive than anytnovel. It is easy and delightful reading. 
One who takes it up will not willingly lay it down until the last 
page has been read. "The Story of a Century" is one of the few 
books that the reader wishes were longer. 

Archibald McLean. 

Cincinnati, Aug. 6, 1909c 

—14— 



CHAPTER I. 
In The Fullness of Time. 



c 



I doubt whether religion was ever at a 
lower ebb in the North Atlantic States thap 
it was at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century. The teaching that man could do 
nothing had borne its natural fruit in in- 
differentism. . . . Westward the star of em- 
pire was taking its way, but there was no 
home missionary society to plant the church 
or the schoolhouse in the border settlements. 
The pagan world dwelt in a great darkness, 
and there was no foreign missionary society 
to send thither the Gospel. The opposition 
to religious revivals was so great as to lead 
the Consociation of Connecticut in 1741 
to declare against the use of evangelists 
for the promotion of revivals, and the 
Legislature of that state to enact laws 
against their activity. The reaction which 
this religion of fatalism produced was not 
unnatural, but it was not intelligent. 
Thomas Paine was its most popular expo- 
nent, and his superficial arguments against 
Christianity had >a vogue in intellectual 
circles which it is difficult for us now to 
comprehend. In Yale University at the 
close of the eighteenth century there were 
two Thomas Paine Societies, and only four 
or five professed members of the Christian 
Church." — Lyman Abbott, on A Century 
of Progress, 



CHAPTER Io 
In the Fullness of Time. 

Jesus Christ came in the fullness of time. That 
is, he came at that point in time when his mission 
would count for most. So every movement for the 
world's betterment that has made a permanent im- 
pression on the thought and life of men has come in 
the fullness of time. The world needed it, and it 
came to supply that need. We can not, therefore, 
judge rightly any movement, whether in religious, 
govermental or social reform, without knowing 
something of the conditions out of which the move- 
ment arose. 

The religious reformation of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, which is the theme of this story, was, in an 
important sense, the child of its time. It grew out 
of conditions which prevailed at the beginning of the 
last century. It was an effort to remedy the abnor- 
mal condition of the church and of religious life 
which then existed. It was a moral necessity under 
the divine government. It had to be. It was as inevit- 
able as the tides, or the precession of the equinoxes. 
It was the necessary result of a living and reign- 

—17— 



The Story of a Ckntury. 

ing Christ who, though exalted above all principali- 
ties and powers as "head over all things to the 
Church" which he established, is fulfilling his ancient 
promise, u L,o, I am with you always, even unto the 
end of the world." The fullness of time in which 
this movement had its origin may be seen from the 
following facts: 

i . All accounts agree that the beginning of the 
nineteenth century was marked by a widespread un- 
belief, amounting, in many cases, to atheism. A 
number of causes contributed to this condition of 
things, chiefly, perhaps, the deism among English 
thinkers of the eighteenth century, ^the French Revo- 
lution with its extreme reaction against religion in 
that country, the war of the Revolution through 
which this country had just passed, together with the 
spiritual deadness of the churches. It is not strange, 
under such conditions, that the students in connec- 
tion with the various insitutions of learning were 
skeptics. In the American Church History Series, 
Volume 12, it is said that "When Theodore D wight 
became president of Yale College in 1795, only four 
or five students were members of the church. The 
predominant thought was skeptical. * * * 

The College of William and Mary was a hotbed of 
unbelief." Transylvania University, Bowdoin Col- 
lege and other institutions of learning were in the 
same condition. Professional men of the early part 

—18— 



The) Story of a Century. 

of the last century were largely unbelievers. Natur- 
ally enough, out of this skepticism there flowed a 
stream of immorality, manifesting itself in various 
ways. 

2. As one of the causes producing this unbelief 
and immorality, and one of the conditions indicating 
the necessity of a religious reform, religious partyism 
prevailed among the churches to an almost incredible 
degree. It is difficult for us who live in these freer 
times, when religious liberty has gained the ascend- 
ency, to imagine the bitterness of party spirit, and 
the servitude to custom and tradition, which pre- 
vailed at this period. The following statement 
quoted from Dr. Richardson's Memoirs, describes the 
condition which prevailed in the first decade of the 
last century: "Each party strove for surpremacy, 
and maintained its peculiarities with a zeal as ardent 
and persecuting as the laws of the land and the use- 
ages of society would premit. The distinguishing 
tenets of each party were constantly thundered from 
the pulpit, and any departure from the 'traditions of 
the elders' was visited at once with the severest 
ecclesiastical censure. Covenanting, church politics, 
church psalmody, hyper-Calvinistic questions, were 
the great topics of the day, and such was the rigid, 
uncompromising spirit prevailing that the most trivial 
things would produce a schism, so that old members 
were known to break off from their congregations 

—19— 



The Story of a Century. 

simply because the clerk presumed to give out, be- 
fore singing, two lines of a psalm instead of one, as 
bad been the usual custom." Pp. 245-6. Each 
sect or party seemed to regard itself as the only 
true representative of the kingdom of God on earth, 
and its aim seems to have been to oppose and pull 
down all other existing religious organizations. To 
build up the denominational walls higher, and to 
fortify themselves against each other more securely, 
seems to have been the chief occupation of ministers 
and other active workers. The spirit of brotherly 
love had been driven out by the spirit of party strife 
and hatred. 

There must have been, of course, exceptions to 
this rule, but such was the condition which generally 
prevailed. Does any one imagine that a state of 
things like that could be permanent? Was not some 
organized movement to remedy these evils a necessity 
of the times? Must not the loving heart of Christ 
have been grieved over the condition of his church? 
We can but think that he who prayed for the unity of 
his followers was only biding the time and the place 
for a movement to promote that unity for which he 
prayed. 

3. The third fact to be mentioned, as indicating 
the fullness of time for such a movement in this 
country, is that it had recently thrown off its alle- 
giance to Great Britain, and here in the New World a 

—go— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

new Republic was born, "dedicated to the proposi- 
tion that all men are created free and equal." Here, 
on the free soil of America, where religious liberty 
was recognized and guarded by the organic law of 
the land, there was an opportunity such as had never 
existed before in any age, or in any land, to inaugu- 
rate a movement looking to the healing of the divis- 
ions in the church and the restoration of those fea- 
tures which had been lost from it during the period 
of its apostasy. Surely the need existed for such a 
reformation; Jesus Christ had prayed for it, and here, 
in this land of freedom, which, as Emerson says, is 
another name for opportunity, was the great oppor- 
tunity, not only for a union of the states, but for the 
union of the churches under Jesus Christ. 

But God carries forward the great movements in 
his church through men. "The spirit of a man is 
the candle of the I,ord. n In the preparation for 
Christianity the spirit of John the Baptist became the 
candle of the Lord, and he was a "bright and shin- 
ing light" for his day. In the first century Paul was 
the chosen instrument for bringing the young 
church out of the thraldom of Judaism into its larger 
life and liberty. In the sixteenth century L,uther 
was God's agent for instituting a religious reforma- 
tion which profoundly affected the life of the church 
for all time. A little later John Calvin, and then, in 
the eighteenth century, John Wesley, became candles 

—21— 



The Story of a Century. 

of the Lord for their age and generation. Had God 
any human agent prepared for the mighty work of 
reform which was demanded in his church at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century? 



-22— 



CHAPTER II. 
The Prime Mover. 



Not to men of greatest intellect does God 
communicate his message for a given time 
of crisis in the history of his providential 
movements in the world, but to men of 
purest heart, of humblest mind, of greatest 
hunger to know and do the will of God, 
of greatest willingness to suffer for truth's 
sake, and to be counted a heretic, if need 
be, for the glory of God and the advance- 
ment of His kingdom. Such men were Mo* 
ses, and Isaiah, and Paul of Bible times, 
•and such have been the men who, in the 
centuries of Christian history, have done 
most to enrich the world with spiritual truth. 
Such a man was Thomas Campbell, the edu- 
cated but humble and believing Presby- 
terian minister, who, landing in the New 
World, opened his mind and heart to re- 
ceive God's truth for his age and genera- 
tion. 



—24— 




Thomas Campbell. 




CHAPTER II. 

The Prime Mover. 

In unnoticed and humble events God often hides 
the seeds of coming revolutions and reformations. 
On a May day in the year 1807 an Atlantic sailing 
vessel landed in Philadelphia, and among the pas- 
sengers who passed along the gangplank and 
stepped upon the shores of the New World was an 
Irishman with Scottish blood in his veins. He was 
alone and a stranger in a strange land. A glance at 
his face and manner would have revealed to any good 
judge of human nature the fact that this new-comer 
was no ordinary foreigner seeking his fortune in this 
land of promise. His high intellectual forehead, his 
handsome face and features, his courtly bearing, 
showed him to be a man of broad culture, and of un- 
usual ability, while his deep earnestness and grave 
demeanor would have marked him as a preacher of 
the gospel. Thousands of vessels before and since 
have landed their passengers from the Old World at 
that and other harbors. Was there anything in this 
particular arrival of special significance to the New 
World? As God sees and measures events there 

—25— 



The Story of a Century. 

was, for this Irish clergyman was Thomas Campbell, 
a minister in the Seceders' Branch of the Presby- 
terian Church, who was soon to deposit a seed of 
truth in the soil of the New World that was to bring 
forth an abundant harvest in the field of religious re- 
form. 

In mentioning the name of Thomas Campbell, 
the prime mover in the religious reformation, whose 
story in brief outline is to be told in these articles, 
we are not unmindful of the fact that there were 
other movements having in view the same general 
aim, which antedated that of the Campbells. In 
many places, as in New England, under the ministry 
of Abner Jones, in New York City, in a church made 
up largely of Scotch Baptists, in Kentucky under the 
ministry of Barton W. Stone, and others, there was 
manifested a deep dissatisfaction with the existing 
condition of the religious world, and efforts were 
made in the way of religious reformation, having in 
view the reinstatement of the Bible as the only rule 
of faith and practice and the unity of God's people. 
Most of these became tributary to the religious refor- 
mation whose prime mover was Thomas Campbell, 
and whose chief actor and guiding spirit in its devel- 
opment was his son Alexander Campbell. This 
movement had within it the elements of truth con- 
tained in the others, together with some additional 
features which have helped to make it the most 

—26— 



The Story of a Century. 

potent factor in the work of religious reform during 
the nineteenth century. 

Thomas Campbell, whose arrival in the New World 
has just been mentioned, was born in County Down, 
Ireland, on February i, 1763. He traced his geneal- 
ogy to the Campbells of Argyle, Scotland. He was, 
therefore, of Scotch-Irish blood, an element of our 
American life which has contributed much, in many 
fields of labor, to the greatness of our country. His 
father, Archibald Campbell, was a Romanist, and 
served as a soldier in the British army under General 
Wolfe. Later in life he abjured Romanism and be- 
came a strict member of the Church of England. 
Thomas, after his conversion, became identified 
with the Seceder Branch of the Presbyterian Church, 
and early decided to devote himself to the work of 
the ministry, for which he prepared himself first by a 
preparatory course of study at a private school, and 
afterwards by a three-years' course in the University 
of Glasgow, taking the prescribed course for minis- 
terial students. After completing his literary course 
at the university he entered the theological school of 
the Anti-Burghers, a branch of the Seceders' Church, 
to which he belonged. He completed the appointed 
course here, and in due time was licensed to preach. 
Before entering upon the active work of the ministry 
he conducted very successfully some private schools. 
Later, however, he became a regular minister in con- 

—27— 



' TURY. 

iiection with the Synod of B and the pastor of 

the church in Ahorey, where he was distinguished 

for his ear:: :i indefatigable labors. In his biog- 

raphy, by his son Alexander I of him that 

he most le and devoted 

:; in the Pi i Synod to which he be- 

Lged. In preaching, torch::; ting his 

ly religion, he 
had certainly no si we could 

ascertain, no i e leaving Ireland he took 

an active part in seeking to bring about a union be- 
tween the difi es of the Presbyterian 
Church in h 

Prof. C 3 Louis Loos, who knew Thomas 

Campbell p lid of him: 

He -.n of large br superior natv.: 

5 gifts. * * * He fa re- 

-d a liberal ed » • • 

I Calvin a the ^ov- 

ign law of ion and in the conduct of life. To 

fe he he 1 . 1 the proi I con vie. 

Ine, A 

convic- 
tion. He was not, as ed cour- 
position, rea ."; I lelanch- 
. under fa . * * On the c U the 

con- 

the 

Word of :ake. * * - Campbe'. ACter 

. ment oi 
--— 



The; Story of a Century. 

manner; he was a true gentleman, and these qualities were worth 
much to him as a Christian reformer. The crowning grace in the 
life of this eminent servant of God was his deep, unaffected 
piety. It was a piety that was true 'godliness* and was, like that 
of his great son, healthy and manly, free from every taint of pie- 
tism.* 

Nothing reveals more clearly the real character 
of a man than his personal letters. His biography 
by his son, Alexander, contains a number of these 
letters, written while out in the field doing the work 
of an evangelist, to his son, to his wife, and to his 
daughter. In a letter to his son, written from Ken- 
tucky he says: 

You can not conceive what a terrible dust our humble name 
has kicked up. If it were not coupled with the pure cause of 
God — the ancient gospel of the Saviour, and the sacred order of 
things established by his holy apostles — I should tremble for the 
consequences. But, alas, the enemies have blasphemed the 
blessed gospel, by pasting our sinful name upon it to bring it 
into disrepute. 

In a letter to his daughter, written from North 
Carolina in 1834, ^ ie says: 

Yes, thanks be to God, like John I have had my Patmos re- 
cesses. By him I am exempted from the attachments of a known 
world. I have been thrown back upon myself, having no con- 
scious friend to look to, in whose ears or bosom I might repose 
my cares, but that ever-present, ever-conscious Guardian, Pro" 
tector, Friend, of whom it is written, "Cast all your cares on him 1 
for he careth for you." Sweet necessity! that shuts us out and 
shuts us to him alone. I walk out alone and solitary to the fields 

*Reforniation of the Nineteenth Century. 

—29— 



The Story of a Century. 

and groves, to indulge in meditation, and commune in holy as 
pirations, in looks, sighs and tears, with my everywhere and 
ever present Father — the Great I Am — to whom I freely speak as it 
occurs upon any subject of these vast and mighty concerns, say- 
ing, Thou art knowledge, power, wisdom, goodness, justice, 
truth, holiness, love, mercy and condescension. 

Here is another extract from a letter written his 
son from Virginia in 1832: 

The opponents here are doing all they can, but the cause of 
reform is daily gathering strength, is in the ascendant. If the 
public advocates from the pulpit and the press would only keep 
their temper, use soft words and hard arguments, it would pro- 
gress still more, "for the wrath of man worketh not the righteous- 
ness of God." May we not expose evils without exposing per- 
sons that practice them, further than to endeavor affectionately 
to convince them that they are wrong? * * * Moreover the 
servant of the Lord must not strive. But be gentle to all, apt to 
teach; patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose them- 
selves; if God peradventure will give them repentance and the 
knowledge of the truth; that so they may recover themselves out 
of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by his will. * * 
I most cordially wish never to see or hear one ironic hint, one 
retaliative retort by any friend cr advocate of the reformation. 
I^et these weapons remain the exclusive property of the disputers 
of this world. When a soldier of the faith assumes them he 
loses caste. They sit awkwardly upon him, as Saul's armor did 
of old upon the champion of Israel; till laid aside he can not 
conquer Speaking the truth in love is the Christian motto. 

Well would it have been if the admonition had 
been heeded by all the advocates of this Reformation. 

Such was the Christian character of Thomas 
Campbell, a man of ardent faith, of profoundest 
humility, of deepest piety and devotion, of sincere 

—30— 



The: Story of a Century. 

reverence for the Word of God, of whose work it is 
said by our opponents, that it is wholly outward and 
concerned merely with forms and doctrines! It has 
seemed proper to give this brief sketch of the man 
himself and of his splendid personality, before call- 
ing attention to his special contribution to the refor- 
mation of the nineteenth century. 



—31— 



CHAPTER III. 
How The Movement Originated 



Where the Scriptures speak, we speak: 
where the Scriptures are silent, we are 
silent. — Thomas Campbell. 

"Nothing ought to be received into the faith 
and worship of the church, or be made a term of 
communion among Christians that is not as old 
as the New Testament." 

"Union in Truth is our motto. The Divine 
Lord is our standard; in the Lord's name do we 
display our banners. Our eyes are upon the prom- 
ises." 

"We have no nostrum, no peculiar discovery of 
our own to propose to fellow Christians, for the 
fancied importance of which they should become 
followers of us. We propose to patronize nothing 
but the inculcation of the express word of God — 
either as to matter of faith or practice; — but every 
one that has a Bible an3 can read it, can read 
this for himself." — Thomas Campbell. 

Here were the germs of a great relig- 
ious movement in the Church looking to its 
purification and unification. It led to a 
re-discovery of Christ. A new and inde- 
pendent study of the Scriptures took Christ 
out of the circumference, where the the- 
ology had placed him, and put him in the 
center, as the sole object of saving faith, 
the only authority in Christianity and 
the only basis of Christian union. It gave 
a new setting to and interpretation of the 
saying of Bnpertus Mildenius — "In things 
essential unity; in things not essential 
liberty; in all things charity. ;; 



CHAPTER III. 

How the Movement Originated. 

In the personality of Thomas Campbell, as we 
have briefly sketched it, we have seen a fit instru- 
ment for God to use in introducing a religious 
reformation. He was possessed of fine natural abil- 
ity, had received a good literary and theological 
training, and was humble, devout, teachable, with 
an unquestioning faith in, and a reverence for, 
God's Word. As previously stated, he was a min- 
ister in the Seceder Branch of the Presbyterian 
Church, one of the strictest branches in that body. 
On his arrival in Philadelphia on May 27, 1807, be- 
ing in his forty-fourth year, he found the Seceder 
Synod of North America in session and, presenting 
his credentials, he was cordially received and as- 
signed to the Presbytery of Chartiers, in Southwest- 
ern Pennsylvania. Locating in the town of Wash- 
ington, in Washington county, he began work at 
once among the Seceder congregations in that region. 
Having been sent up the Allegheny valley to hold a 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper among the scattered 
members of that flock, he found members belonging 

—35— 



The; Story of a Century. 

to different branches of the Presbyterian body, and 
being compassionate toward them he ignored their 
denominational distinctions and invited them all to 
the communion service. He was accompanied by a 
young theologian of the same'body who, taking note 
of his liberal sentiments and of his charity, which 
was wider than his own particular branch, made com- 
plaint before the Presbytery that Mr. Campbell was 
not "sound" in the unadultered faith of the Seced- 
ers. The Presbytery had already observed the 
breadth of Mr. Campbell's teaching and sympathy, 
and were quite disposed to entertain complaints 
against him. His defense, however, was that he had 
done nothing contrary to the Scriptures, and chal- 
lenged his accusers to point out where he had trans- 
gressed the Word of God. It was enough, however, 
that he had transgressed the "Seceder Testimony," 
and for this reason he was reprimanded. 

CENSURED FOR HIS UBERAUTY. 

Assured of the righteousness of his cause, Thomas 
Campbell appealed to the Seceder Synod of North 
America, which was the highest court in the church, 
and in his appeal to them shows clearly the direction 
in which his mind is tending. He protests against 
the injustice of thrusting out from their communion 
"a Christian brother, a fellow minister, for saying 
and doing none other things than those which our 

—36— 



Thk Story of a Ckntury. 

Divine Lord and his Holy Apostles have taught, and 
enjoined to be spoken and done by his people." He 
hopes that "it is no presumption to believe that say- 
ing and doing the very same things that are said and 
done before our eyes on the sacred page, is infallibly 
right, as well as all-sufficient to the edification of the 
church, whose duty and perfection is in all things to 
the conformed to the original standard." In the 
innocence of his heart he asks his brethern of the 
Synod this question: "Is it, therefore, because I 
plead the cause of the scriptural and apostolic wor- 
ship of the church, in opposition to the various er- 
rors and schisms which have so awfully corrupted 
and divided it, that the brethren of the Union should 
feel it difficult to admit me as their fellow laborer in 
that blessed work?" It was exactly for that reason 
that Thomas Campbell found himself under censure. 
While setting aside the action of the Presbytery as 
irregular, the Synod nevertheless censured Thomas 
Campbell for expressing sentiments "very different 
from those held and professed by this church." 

Even this sharp rebuke was not sufficient to cut 
the tie that bound this devoted preacher to the church 
with which he had been so long identified, and he 
submitted to the censure with the explanation that 
his submission should be understood to mean no more 
on his part than an act of deference to the judgment of 
the court that he might avoid giving offense to his 

—37— 



The Story of a Century. 

brethren. He still hoped that his brethren would 
see the reasonableness of his plea for healing the 
divisions in the church bv returning to a stricter 
conformity to the Word of God. Instead of this, 
however, the opposition to him grew more intense 
until it became evident to him that God was leading 
him in another way. It is wonderful how God, by 
ward circumstances, guides and shapes the course 
of men whom he has chosen to do his work? It is 
clear enough to us who live in these later days that his 
great work as a reformer could never have been ac- 
complished in connection with this "straightest sect" 
of the Calvinistic faith, but it required the kind of op- 
position which he received to convince him that he 
must sever his relation with the church of his first 
love in order to accomplish the work which God 
wanted him to do. He therefore served notice on the 
Synod that he was no longer subject to its control, 
and that he surrendered "all ministerial connection" 
with it, and held himself henceforth independent of 
its authority. 

A RULE OF REFORMATION. 

This decisive step was not taken without personal 
grief, we ma] it it was taken under a 

solemn sense of duty, which afterwards brought its re- 
ward in a new sense of freedom in the service of God. 
He continued his ministerial labors, however, meeting 

—38 — 



The: Story of a Century. 

in private dwellings, barns, schoolhouses, and in the 
groves, God's first temple. At his suggestion a 
meeting was held not long afterwards to take counsel 
on the best method to pursue to accomplish some 
definite results in the way of religious reform. It 
was a deeply interesting and a very solemn meeting- 
Thomas Campbell spoke at considerable length, de. 
ploring the evils of our sectarian divisions, and plead- 
ing for union on the Bible alone as the only infalli- 
ble standard of faith and duty. It was in this address 
that, seeking for some rule of action that would guide 
their course, he exclaimed: "That rule, my highly 
respected hearers, is this: k Where the Scriptures 
speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we 
are silent. ,' " The saying pleased the people, in the 
main, who seemed to feel that here was a principle 
enunciated that would guide them out of bondage to 
human traditions and speculations into the liberty 
and unity which are in Christ. 

What did Thomas Campbell and those who 
agreed with him mean by the adoption and use of 
this motto? So greatly has this saying been abused 
by those who profess to accept it, that it seems worth 
while to raise this question at this point. The true 
answer to it must be found in an understanding of the 
condition of things in the religious world at that 
time, from which it was the purpose of these men to 
escape. There was a whole mass of traditions and 

—39— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

commandments of men which had been bound upon 
the consciences of the people, which many had come 
to regard as sacred and as binding as the Word of 
God itself. On the other hand, some of the divine 
commandments were lightly regarded, having been 
made void by the commandments of men. It was to 
meet this condition of things that Thomas Camp- 
bell uttered his famous saying. 

MEANING OF THE RULE. 

"Where the Scriptures speak we speak" mea-nt to 
Thomas Campbell and his co-laborers that they were 
determined to be loyal to the Word of God, and to 
follow it whithersoever it might lead them. A 
"thus saith the Lord" was to be the end of all con- 
troversy. "Where the Scriptures are silent we are 
silent " meant that these reformers were equally de- 
termined to resist all human authority in religion. 
Where God left the way open for the exercise of 
human freedom, there no man should bind them. 
What God does not require of us, in order to salva- 
tion, no human authority has a right to make a con- 
dition of salvation, or of fellowship. 

It will be seen from the foregoing that this say- 
ing of Thomas Campbell was a two-edged sword, one 
edge cutting off the pretended liberty to ignore or 
slight what God has commanded, and the other edge 
cutting away the pretended authority that attempts 

—40— 



The; Story of a Ckntury. 

to bind men where God has left them free. The 
principle of Thomas Campbell leaves the church no 
alternative but to accept and practice every divine 
ordinance and doctrine. On the other hand, it gives 
the church ample liberty to exerise its best judgment 
in carrying out the divine commands and great pur- 
poses of the gospel, where no methods are specified. 
For instance, the command to preach the gospel to 
all nations is forever obligatory on the church. How 
that can best be carried out, by what methods of 
organization and co-operation in different ages of the 
world and under different conditions, is to be deter- 
mined by the best judgment of the church, only no 
method must be adopted that antagonizes any plain 
teaching of the gospel. It, therefore, secures loy- 
alty to the Word of God, and loyalty to Jesus Christ, 
while, on the other hand, it secures that liberty which 
we have in Christ Jesus, and which must be main- 
tained if the church is to accomplish its mission in 
the world. 

This was the germ truth from which sprang the 
Reformation of the nineteenth century, in which 
Thomas Campbell was the prime mover. A fuller 
elaboration of this principle will be seen in his Dec- 
laration and Address, to which attention will next be 
called. 



—41— 



CHAPTER IV. 
Some Guiding Principles. 



"We are persuaded that it is high time 
for us not only to think, but also to act 
for ourselves; to see with our own eves, 
and to take all our measures directly from 
the Divine standard; to this alone we feel 
ourselves divinely bound to be conformed; 
as by this alone we must be judged. We 
are also persuaded that as no man can be 
judged for his brother, so no man can judge 
his brother, but that every man must be 
allowed to judge for himself, as every man 
must bear his own judgment, must give 
an account of himself to God. We are also 
of the opinion that as the Divine word is 
equally binding upon all, so all lie under 
.an equal obligation to be bound by it and 
it alone; and not by any human interpre- 
tation of it, and that therefore no man has 
a right to judge his brother, except in so 
far as he manifestly violates the spirit of 
the law. . . . Our desire, therefore, for 
ourselves and our brethren would be that k 
rejecting human opinions and the inven- 
tions of men as of any authority, or as 
having any place in the Church of God, 
we might forever cease from further con- 
tentions about such things, returning to 
and holding fast by the original standard, 
taking the Divine word alone for our rule, 
the Holy Spirit for our Teacher and Guide, 
to lead us all into all truth, and Christ 
alone as exhibited in the word, for our 
salvation that, by so doing, we may be at 
peace among ourselves, follow peace with 
all men and holiness, without which no man 
shall see God. 9I — Thomas Campbell. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Some Guiding Principles. 

One of the first steps in a logical mind in begin- 
ning a work of religious reformation, when the need 
of it is clearly perceived and the purpose to undertake 
it is definitely formed, is to enunciate the fundamen- 
tal or guiding principles by which the reformation is 
to be effected. Thomas Campbell recognized the 
need of such a statement of principles, and also of 
some organized effort to give them practical effect. 
Accordingly u at a meeting held in Buffalo, August 
17, 1809, consisting of persons of different religious 
denominations, most of them in an unsettled state as 
to a fixed gospel ministry, it was unanimously agreed, 
upon the considerations, and for the purpose here- 
after declared, to form themselves into a religious as- 
sociation . . . which they accordingly did, and ap- 
pointed twenty-one of their number to meet and con- 
fer together, and with the assistance of Elder 
Thomas Campbell, minister of the gospel, to deter- 
mine upon the proper means to carry into effect the 
important ends of their Association. M * 

*L,ife of Thomas Campbell, page 25. 

—45— 



The Story of a Century. 

THK CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. 

The name of this Association was the Christian 
Association of Washington, Pa. It disclaimed any 
purpose of considering itself a church, or its state- 
ment of principles as a creed. It was a voluntary 
association of Christian people of various denomina- 
tions, who believed that a religious reformation was 
needed and were willing to work together for that 
end. At a subsequent meeting of this Association, 
September 7, 1809, a Declaration and Address was 
presented by Thomas Campbell, setting forth some of 
the principles which should guide them in their ef- 
forts to bring the church into closer conformity to 
scriptural teaching. This address was approved and 
ordered to be printed on that date. This, therefore, 
is regarded as the birthday of the current Reforma- 
tion. The address is directed to the entire religious 
world, and is conceived and expressed in the spirit of 
the deepest Christian courtesy and fraternity. 
"Dearly beloved brethren," it goes on so say, u why 
should we deem it a thing incredible that the Church 
of Christ, in this highly favored country, should re- 
sume that original unity, peace and purity which 
belong to its constitution, and constitute its glory? 
Or, is there anything that can be justly deemed 
necessary for this desirable purpose but to conform to 
the model and adopt the practice of the primitive 
Church, expressly exhibited in the New Testament? 

—46— 



The: Story of a Century. 

Whatever alterations this might produce in any or in 
all of the churches, should, we think, neither be 
deemed inadmissible nor ineligible. Surely such 
alteration would be every way for the better, and not 
for the worse, unless we should suppose the divinely 
inspired rule to be faulty or defective." 

CONFORMITY TO NEW TESTAMENT. 

Note the implied confidence which this reformer 
expressed in the sincerity and loyalty of the various 
Protestant bodies of Christendom, in his supposition 
that they would be willing to make such alterations 
in their teaching and practice as would bring them 
into perfect conformity with the New Testament 
standard. Will Thomas Campbell himself be able to 
conform to this rule, and to surrender opinions and 
practices which he then held in order to consistently 
carry out this principle? It is to his everlasting honor 
that, although this principle demanded the surrender 
of former cherished convictions and practices, he never 
shrank from making the sacrifice in the interest of 
truth and unity. So important are the principles 
laid down in this address to any correct understand- 
ing of the religious movement which Thomas Camp- 
bell inaugurated, and of the motives which prompted 
him and others in beginning the movement, that we 
embody herein the thirteen propositions which he 
begged his brethren of the churches to understand 

—47— 



The Story of a Century. 

were not intended u as an overture toward a new 
creed or standard for the Church or as in any wise de- 
signed to be made a term of communion;" on the con- 
trary, they were l< merely designed for opening up 
the way, that we may come fairly and firmly to 
original ground upon clear and certain premises, and 
take up things just as the apostles left them; that 
thus disentangled from the accruing embarrassments 
of intervening ages, we may stand with evidence 
upon the same ground on which the church stood at 
the beginning. n We bespeak for these principles a 
careful study on the part of all who would under- 
stand the current Reformation. 

Pregnant Propositions . 

1. "That the church of Christ upon earth is essentially, in- 
tentionally and constitutionally one, consisting of all those in 
every place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to 
him in all things according to the Scriptures, and that manifest the 
same by their temper and conduct; and of none else, as none else 
can be truly and properly called Christians. 

2. "That, although the Church of Christ must necessarily 
exist in particular and distinct societies, locally separate one 
from another, yet there ought to be no schisms, no uncharitable 
divisions among them. They ought to receive each other as 
Jesus Christ hath also received them, to the glory of God, and for 
this purpose they ought all to walk by the same rule; to mind 
and speak the same things, and to be perfectly 'joined together 
in the same mind and in the same judgment. 

3. "That, in order to do this, nothing ought to be inculcated 
upon Christians as articles of faith, nor required of them as terms 
of communion, but what is expressly taught and enjoined upon 

—18— 



The Story of a Century. 

them in the Word of God. Nor ought anything to be Emitted 
as of Divine obligation in their church constitution and manage- 
ment but what is expressly enjoined by the authority of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and his apostles upon the New Testament church, 
either in express terms or by an approved precedent. 

4. "That although the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments are inseparably connected, making together but one per- 
fect and entire revelation of the Divine will, for the edification 
and salvation of the church, and, therefore, in that respect can 
not be separated; yet as to what directly and properly belongs to 
their immediate object, the New Testament is as perfect a consti- 
tution for the worship, discipline and government of the New 
Testament church and as perfect a rule for the particular duties 
of its members, as the Old Testament was for the worship, disci- 
pline and government of the Old Testament church and the par- 
ticular duties of its members. 

5. "That with respect to commands and ordinances of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, where the Scriptures are silent as to the ex- 
press time or manner of performance, if any such there be, no 
human authority has power to interfere in order to supply the 
supposed deficiency by making laws for the church; nor can any- 
thing more be required of Christians in such cases but only that they 
so observe these commands and ordinances, as will evidently an. 
swer the declared and obvious end of their institution. Much less 
has any human authority power to impose new commands or 
ordinances upon the church, which our Lord Jesus Christ has not 
enjoined. Nothing ought to be received into the faith or worship 
of the church, or be made a term of communion among Chris- 
tians, that is not as old as the New Testament. 

6. "That although inference and deductions from Scripture 
premises, when fairly inferred, may be truly called the doctrine of 
God's holy word, yet are they not formally binding upon the con- 
sciences of Christians farther than they perceive the connection 
and evidently see that they are soj for their faith must not stand 
in the wisdom of men, but in the power and veracity of God* 
Therefore no such deductions can be made terms of communion, 

(4) —49— 



The; Story of a Century. 

but do properly belong to the after and progressive edification of 
the church. Hence it is evident that no deductions or inferen- 
tral truths ought to have any place in the church's confession. 

7. "That although doctrinal exhibitions of the great system 
of Divine truths, and defensive testimonies in opposition to pre- 
vailing errors, be highly expedient and the more full and ex- 
plicit they be for those purposes, the better; yet, as thesemust be, 
in a great measure, the effect of human reasoning and of course 
must contain many inferential truths, they ought not to be made 
terms of Christian communion unless we suppose, what is con- 
trary to fact, that none have a right to the communion of the 
church but such as possess a very clear and decisive judgment, or 
are come to a very high degree of doctrinal information, where- 
as, the Church from the beginning did, and ever will, consist of 
little children and young men as well as fathers. 

8. "That as it is not necessary that persons should have a 
particular knowledge or distinct apprehension of all divinely re- 
vealed truths, in order to entitle them to a place in the church; 
neither should they, for this purpose, be required to make a pro- 
fession more extensive than their knowledge; but that on the con- 
trary their having a due measure of scriptural self-knowledge re- 
specting their lost and perishing condition by nature and prac- 
tice, and of the way of salvation through Jesus Christ accom- 
panied with profession of their faith in and obedience to him in 
all things according to his word is all that is absolutely neces- 
sary to qualfy them for admission into his church. 

9. "That all that are enabled through grace to make such a 
profession and to manifest the reality of it in their tempers and 
conduct should consider each other as the precious saints of God, 
should love each other as brethren, children of the same family 
and father, temples of the same Spirit, members of the same 
body, subjects of the same grace, objects of the same Divine love, 
bought with the same price and joint-heirs of the same inherit- 
ance. Whom God has thus joined together no man should dare 
put asunder. 

10. "The division among Christians is a horrid evil, fraught 

—50— 



The: Story of a Century. 

with many evils. It is Anti-Christian, as it destroys the visible 
unity of the body of Christ, as if he were divided against himself , 
excluding and excommunicating a part of himself. It is anti-scrip- 
tural, as being strictly prohibited by his sovereign authority, a 
a direct violation of his express command. It is anti-natural, as 
it excites Christians to continue to hate and oppose one another 
who are bound by the highest and most endearing obligations to 
love each other as brethren, even as Christ hath loved them. In 
a word, it is productive of confusion and every evil work. 

11. "That (in some instances), a partial neglect of the ex- 
pressly revealed will of God, and (in others) an assumed author- 
ity for making the approbation of human opinions and human 
inventions a term of communion, by introducing them into the 
constitution, faith, or worship of the church, are and have been 
the immediate, obvious, and universally acknowledged causes of 
all the corruptions and divisions that ever have taken place in 
the church of God. 

12. "That all that is necessary to the highest state of perfec- 
tion and purity of the Church upon earth is, first, that none be 
received as members but such as, having that due measure of 
scriptural self-knowledge described above, do profess their faith 
in Christ and obedience to him in all things, according to the 
Scriptures; nor, secondly, that any be retained in her communion 
longer than they continue to manifest the reality of their pro- 
fession by their temper and conduct. Thirdly, that her ministers, 
duly and scripturally qualified, inculcate none other things than 
those very articles of faith and holiness expressly revealed and 
taught in the word of God. L,astly, that in all their adminis- 
trations they keep close by the observance of all Divine ordinan- 
ces, after the example of the primitive church, exhibited in the 
New Testament, without any additions whatsoever of human 
opinions or inventions of men. 

13. "lastly. That if any circumstantials indispensably nec- 
essary to the observance of Divine ordinances be not found upon 
the page of express revelation, such, and such only, as are abso- 
lutely necessary for this purpose, should be adopted under the 

—51— 



The Story of a Century. 

title of human expedients, without any pretense to a more sacred 
origin, so that any subsequent alteration or difference in the 
observance of these things might produce no contention or divi- 
sion in the church." 

It is further explained in this address that there 
is no desire to seek union by the sacrifice of truth. 
11 'Union in Truth' is our motto." It was not sup- 
posed for a moment, however, that all men could be 
united in their opinions. u But that all the mem- 
bers should have the same identical views of all 
divinely-revealed truths, or that there should be no 
difference of opinion among them, appears to us 
morally impossible, all things considered. Nor can 
we conceive what desirable purpose such a unity of 
sentiment would serve, except to render useless some 
of those gracious, self-denying, and compassionate 
precepts of mutual sympathy and forbearance which 
the Word of God enjoins upon His people." Not 
upon opinions, then, but upon the great fundamen- 
tal truths and facts of the gospel does this far-seeing 
reformer urge the unity of the people of God. 



—52— 



CHAPTER V. 
The Chief Actor. 



It often happens :'z r -~ the man whc Es- 
covers n announces first a :ie~ idea or 

principle is not the one best It 

carry that idea or principle intc praeti 

effect. It in the sase xf the : trrent 

reformation. While Thom;, Campbell 

admirably fitted t: sec and announce the 
great ele T ^ n g the 

ret :ll::::;^. there was for the 

times a man of a wider intellectual range, 
more mental independence, an lisin- 

:es::t :: :■ :n±:ct in leiense of 
these :_: les, and especially in their 
d - ] their own former 
convictions and practices. His .?:_. Alex- 
ander, seeme 1 ned and 
e roij ped foi work, and history tells 
-:~ re; - 1 fi ithr 

i mdent Happy the man who 

h ;.. ti^tforra :i re". . v- 
reform t: the : train a aon whe 

ild be capable of applying it :: the liv- 
ing questions ;: the age. 



54 



CHAPTER V. 
The Chief Actor. 

While Thomas Campbell was a prime mover m 
the Reformation of the nineteenth century, his son, 
Alexander Campbell, became the chief actor and 
the leading spirit. There is in this order of things 
evidence of that divine and over-ruling Providence 
which selects different men for different tasks in 
carrying forward the purposes of God in the world. 
No man living was better fitted by natural tempera- 
ment, by training, by his religious environment, 
first in the Old World, and then in the New, by his 
humility of spirit, by his reverence for the Word of 
God, and his ardent desire for the peace and unity 
of the church, than was Thomas Campbell to be the 
recipient of God's message for that day. To him it 
was given to see the evils of division; to hear God's 
call, in the condition and events of the times and in 
his Word, for the unity of the church, and to per- 
ceive and announce the great fundamental principles 
by which this unity might be realized. But as it 
was not given to David to build the temple of God, 
on which he had set his heart, but only to prepare 

--55— 



The Story of a Century. 

for it, while the great work itself was left to his son 
Solomon, so while the vision of a united church was 
given to Thomas Campbell, and the guiding princi- 
ples by which this consummation was to be realized, 
it was reserved for his son, Alexander Campbell, to 
apply these principles to the actual work of religious 
reformation. For this latter work Alexander Camp- 
bell possessed qualifications superior to those of his 
father, or to any other man of his age and genera- 
tion. 

Alexander Campbell was born in the County of 
Antrim, Ireland, September 12, 1788. On his 
father's side, as we have seen, he was of the purest 
Scottish blood, being related to Thomas Campbell, 
the poet, and to the Campbells of Argyle, Scotland, 
of which the Duke of Argyle, Sir Archibald Camp- 
bell, was the head. From his mother's side he 
received the blood of the French Huguenots, who 
were refugees in Scotland from religious persecution. 
From his earliest youth Alexander received the most 
careful religious and literary training. He formed 
the habit, early in life, of memorizing select extracts 
from the best authors, and especially from the Scrip- 
tures, large portions of which he could recite from 
memory. He pays this tribute to his mother: 

She made a nearer approximation to the acknowledged beau 
ideal of a Christian mother than any one of her sex with 
whom I had the pleasure of forming a special acquaintance. 
I can but gratefully say that to my mother, as well as to my 

—06—' 



The Story of a Century. 

father, I am indebted for having memorized in early life almost 
all the writings of King Solomon — his Proverbs, his Ecclesiastes 
and many of the Psalms of his father David. They have not 
only been written on the tablet of my memory, but incorporated 
with my modes of thinking and speaking. 

With such religious training, it is not strange 
that early in life he became deeply concerned about 
his personal salvation. This is his own record of 
his religious experience: 

From the time that I could read the Scriptures, I became 
convinced that Jesus was the Son of God. I was also fully per- 
suaded that I was a sinner, and must obtain pardon through the 
merits of Christ, or be lost forever. This caused me great dis- 
tress of soul, and I had much exercise of mind under the awak- 
enings of a guilty conscience. Finally, after much strugglings, 
I was enabled to put my trust in the Saviour, and to feel my reli- 
ance on him as the only Saviour of sinners. From the moment 
I was able to feel this reliance on the L,ord Jesus Christ, I 
obtained and enjoyed peace of mind. It never entered my head 
to investigate the subject of baptism or the doctrines of the 
creed.* 

Soon after this he became a member of his father's 
church at Ahorey, and began to give special atten- 
tion to theological studies and ecclesiastical history. 
At the age of seventeen he became an assistant of 
his father in an academy, so proficient had he 
become in his studies. When Alexander was nine- 
tee n years of age his father, on the advice of his 
physician, which was strongly reinforced by the per- 

*Memoirs, Page 48. 

—57— 



The Story of a Century. 

suasion of his son, determined on a voyage across 
the Atlantic, to seek a home for himself and his 
family in the New World. Already the son had made 
up his mind that he would emigrate to America when 
he became of age, and naturally he was favorable 
to the idea of his father going thither. Accordingly, 
leaving his wife and the other younger members 
of the family in charge of Alexander, Thomas Camp- 
bell set sail on April 8, 1807, it being agreed that 
the family was to follow if the father was pleased 
with the country. Early in the following year Al- 
exander received a letter from his father, urging 
him to make all haste to bring the family to him, 
where he was located in Washington, Pa. It was 
not, however, until the first of October that the ship 
"Hibernia" actually hoisted sail and took its depar- 
ture for its long voyage. It was then that one of those 
strange events happened which often have so mnch 
to do in molding one's future life and destiny. On 
the night of October 7 the vessel was wrecked off 
the coast of Scotland, the passengers being saved 
after great peril, but with the loss of nearly all their 
possessions. Alexander, by a strange premonition 
in a dream, had seen the disaster of the ship early 
in the evening, and had warned the family to be 
ready for any emergency. Himself refusing to 
undress that night, he was thereby the better pre- 
pared to assist the family when the catastrophe 

—58— 



The; Story of a Ckntury. 

occurred. The following extract from Dr. Richard- 
son's Memoirs will be of interest: 

It was now that Alexander, having done all that was possible 
for the present safety of his charge, abandoned himself to reflec- 
tion as he sat on the stump of a broken mast, and in the near 
prospect of death, felt, as never before, the vanity of the aims 
and ambitions of human life. The world now seemed to him a 
worthless void, and all its attractions a vain, delusive show. 
Kingdoms, thrones and scepters could not, he thought, if 
offered, excite one wish for their possession. The true objects 
of human desire and the true purposes of man's creation now 
appeared to him in all their excellence and glory. He thought 
of his father's noble life, devoted to God and to the salvation 
of his fellow-beings, and felt that such a calling, consecrated to 
the elevation and everlasting happiness of mankind, was 
indeed, the highest and most worthy sphere of action in which 
any human being could engage. It was then, in that solemn 
hour, that he gave himself up wholly to God, and resolved that, 
if saved from the present peril, he would certainly spend his 
entire life in the ministry of the gospel. It was at this moment 
that he for the first time fully decided upon adopting the min- 
istry as his profession.* 

How often does it turn out that the frustration of 
our plans and purposes is God's method of better fit- 
ting us for our life-work. This shipwreck was a sad 
disappointment to young Campbell and the family, 
but it is not difficult to see, in the light of subsequent 
events, how important an influence it exerted on the 
life of the future reformer. The trip to America 
that year was abandoned, in view of the lateness of 
the season, and the family went to Glasgow, 

♦Memoirs, pp. 101, 102. 



The Story of a Century. 

Scotland, where Alexander desired to pursue 
some studies in the university where his father 
had been educated. He entered his classes on the 
eighth of November, and being of an eminently 
social disposition, formed an extensive acquaintance 
among the numerous students who were there from 
Ireland and Scotland. He found time to do a great 
deal of reading in connection with his studies. 
Alexander Campbell's biographer says of his stay in 
Glasgow that "while it left his main purpose unal- 
tered, it was destined to work an entire revolution in 
his views and feelings in respect to the existing 
denominations, and to disengage his sympathies 
entirely from the Seceder denomination and every 
other form of Presbyterianism." 

This change seems to have been wiought chiefly 
through his intimate acquaintance with Greville 
Ewing, who took a special interest in Alexander, 
and in the family. Through him he became ac- 
quainted with the work of the Haldane brothers, of 
distinguished Scottish ancestry, whose wealth and 
religious zeal, together with certain ideas of relig- 
ious reform which they held, made them conspicuous 
characters in their time. Some of their views, it 
appears, had deeply influenced the mind of Mr. 
Campbell. The benefit derived by the young 
reformer from his studies in the university in Greek, 
logic and belles lettres, and in experimental philos- 

—60— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

ophy, together with the new religious ideas he had 
gained from contact with other minds, in the work 
of religious reform, was the added preparation which 
was to better fit him for the work which awaited 
him in the New World. It is a remarkable fact, 
and one, too, which indicates a guiding providence, 
that while the son was thus being disengaged from 
his attachment to the Seceder Church in the Old 
World, the father was undergoing the same experi- 
ence, by a somewhat different process, in the New 
world. Hence, it so happened that when Alexander 
Campbell, with the other members of the family, 
joined the father in the latter part of September, 
1809, and the latter had related the occurrences 
which had practically severed his connection with 
the Seceder Church, he found his son in perfect 
sympathy with his position. 



-61— 



CHAPTER VI. 
Application of Principles. 



Wherefore, King Agrippa, I was not 
disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but 
declared both to them of Damascus first 
and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the 
country of Judaea, and also to the Gentiles, 
that they should repent and turn to God, 
doing works worthy of repentance. ? ' — 
Acts 26:19, 20. 

w w ▼ 

As it was in the case of Paul, so it has 
been in the case of every man who has 
risen to greatness and to power in the 
kingdom of God. He must follow the light 
as God gives him to see the light, or for- 
feit his moral standing with God and all 
hope of future progress in the kingdom of 
truth. Alexander Campbell was not diso- 
bedient to the vision of truth and duty 
as it came to him, and because he preferred 
persecution and unpopularity to disobedi- 
ence, God gave him a place of power among 
men which shell increase with the passing 
years. 






CHAPTER VI. 

Application of Principles. 

The first task which confronted Alexander Camp- 
bell on his arrival at Washington, Pa., was the ex- 
amination of the proof sheets of the Declaration and 
Address which his father had previously prepared, 
and which had been ordered to be printed and circu- 
lated. As already intimated, his experience in the 
Old World and his associations at Glasgow University 
had served to dissatisfy him with the existing order 
of things in the religious world, and to put him in an 
attitude for independent thought and action. Read- 
ing carefully the now historic document, he was 
greatly impressed with the scriptural character and 
far-reaching nature of the principles set forth in this 
new declaration of independence. He at once de- 
clared his hearty approval of the propositions con- 
tained therein, but his mind was so constituted that 
he could not stop with a mere approval of the general 
principles of religious reform. He began at once to 
inquire what were the implications of these principles 

and what effect their application would have on ex- 
(5) —65— 



The Story of a Century. 

isting beliefs and practices, such as he and his father 
and the church with which they had been identified 
held as having divine sanction. 

One of the first of these practices to pass under 
review, in the light of the proposition that "nothing 
should be required as a matter of faith or duty for 
which a 'Thus saith the Lord' could not be produced 
either in expressed terms or by approved precedent,' * 
was infant baptism. A Presbyterian minister had 
called his attention to the fact that this principle was 
not sound, because u if followed out you must become 
a Baptist." This startled the young reformer, and 
he at once began a thorough investigation of the sub- 
ject, securing all the works extant that he could 
procure, in favor of infant baptism, and subjecting 
their arguments to the test of New Testament teach- 
ing. He made this honest investigation in the 
earnest hope of finding justification for the practice. 
The arguments in favor of the practice seemed to him 
to be assumptions and fallacious reasonings. He 
therefore threw them aside, and restorted to his Greek 
New Testament, which afforded him no relief. 
Thomas Campbell admitted the absence of scriptural 
authority for the practice, but argued that he could 
i( see no propriety, even if the scriptural evidence for 
infant baptism be found deficient, in their unchurch- 
ing or paganizing themselves, or in putting off Christ 
merely for the sake of making a new profession, thus 



The Story of a Century. 

going out of the church merely for the sake of com- 
ing in again!" 

In deference to his father's views Alexander dis- 
missed the subject for the time, but after his marriage 
and the birth of their first child, he was led to 
take up once more, de novo, the whole subject of 
baptism in the light of the New Testament Scriptures 
and the principles of religious reform which his fath- 
er had enunciated and he had approved. Not to fol- 
low here the process of his reasoning, the conclusion 
reached was, that only believers in Christ w r ere quali- 
fied for Christian baptism, and that baptism in New 
Testament usage, as well as in the very meaning of 
the term, was immersion, involving burial in and 
resurrection from the water, symbolizing Christ's 
burial and resurrection from the dead, as well as the 
believer's own death to sin and resurrection to new- 
ness of life. Having reached this conviction he was 
not the kind of man to remain long without bringing 
his obedience into harmony with his convictions of 
truth. He therefore arranged with a Baptist minis- 
ter living near Washington to baptize him on a cer- 
tain date, stipulating that he was to be required only 
to confess his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the 
prerequisite to baptism. Thomas Campbell notified 
his son, as they were starting to the place appointed, 
that he and his wife had decided also to be immersed. 
A few others had reached the same decision, so that 

—67— 



The Story of a Century. 

there were seven in all who, on that day, submitted 
to New Testament baptism, as they understood it, 
including Alexander Campbell and his wife, his fath- 
er and mother and his sister.* 

Only those who have passed through similar ex- 
periences can realize what it must have cost these lead- 
ers, after years of religious service in preaching the 
gospel, and in teaching others, to take such a step as 
this. Lying back behind this act were weeks and 
months of earnest mental struggle to know the truth, 
and to follow it whithersoever it would lead. It is not 
difficult to imagine how loth both Thomas Campbell 
and his son Alexander were to put up what might 
seem a barrier to their cherished object, Christian 
union. No doubt it was the fear of putting a hin- 
drance in the way of this blessed consummation that 
held them back, for a time, from taking the step 
which their own consciences seemed to demand. 
They came to see, however, that if immersion was 
the New Testament ordinance which Christ had com- 
manded, and which the apostles had practiced, they 
themselves were not erecting any human barrier to 
Christian union. In addition to that they had come 
to see that it was not a mere question as to the form 

*Oa a May day of the present year (1909) the author visited the spot on Buf- 
falo Creek, about a mile above its junction with Brush. Run, where this historic 
event occurred. It was probably the first instance in modern times of baptism 
administered upon the simple confession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the 
Son of the living God. It was the dawning of a new era of religious freedom. 

—68— 



The: Story of a Century. 

of baptism, but that their new view of the ordinance, 
including its design and proper subjects, affected 
their whole conception of Christianity and of the 
church. Accordingly, when it became evident that 
their Christian Association must take the form and ful- 
fill the functions of a church, and the congregation at 
Brush Run was formed, only those were finally re- 
ceived into its membership who were immersed be- 
lievers. This has been the rule in all the churches 
subsequently established. 

Was this step in harmony with the principles laid 
down in the Declaration and Address and with the 
chief purpose which these reformers had in view — the 
unity of Christians? This question need not be dis- 
cussed here as to those who hold that New Testament 
baptism does not involve immersion and is not limit- 
ed to believers only. There are those, however, 
who, admitting that this is the teaching of Christ and 
his apostles, yet claim that to make this teaching a 
standard of church membership is to violate the prin- 
ciples laid down in the Declaration and Address, and 
to put an obstacle in the way of Christian union. 
This is not the place for any extended discussion of 
this question. We may be sure that these men, who 
were the chosen instruments of reform, gave careful 
and prayerful thought to this question. All their pre- 
dilections pointed in the direction of making the 
question as to the form of baptism optional in the 

—69— 



The Story of a Century. 

church. Success in their cherished object, from all 
human reasoning at least, pointed in the same di- 
rection. And yet in spite of these facts they adopt- 
ed the principle of restoring the simple New Testa- 
ment faith and practice as the surest and only safe 
way of restoring the ancient unity of the church. 

It never occurred to them for a moment that only 
those who would accept this progam were Christians, 
and that all others were non-Christians, because they 
knew by experience the mental struggles through 
which one must pass in a radical change of his reli- 
gious views. They had a profound respect for the 
Christian character of many who differed from them. 
They felt, however, that if it were their mission to 
promote Christian union by a complete return to New 
Testament faith and practice, and to illustrate in 
their church life the very principles which they were 
to teach, they had no authority or sanction for modi- 
fying any divine requirement. They recognized the 
fact that God has different kinds of work for various 
kinds of workers, and that he would know how to 
use, to his glory and to the good of men, churches 
and organizations which would not enter into this 
work of restoring New Testament teaching, and in 
bringing to pass the realization of Christ's prayer 
for unity. 

If the success which God gives to those who are 
seeking faithfully to carry out his purpose in the 

—70— 



The Story of a Century. 

world may be cited as proof, are we not justified, by 
the testimony of history, in concluding that these 
pioneers were led by a wisdom more than human in 
adopting the course which they themselves pursued 
and commended to those who were to come after 
them? 



—71— 



^ 



CHAPTER VII. 
A Change of Leaders. 



Alexander Campbell is unquestionably 
one of the most extraordinary men of our 
time. Putting wholly out of view his ten- 
ets, with which we have nothing to do, he 
claims by his intrinsic qualities, as mani- 
fested in his achievements, a place among 
the foremost spirits of the age. His energy, 
self-reliance and self -fidelity, if we may use 
the expression, are of the stamp that be- 
longs only to the world's first leaders in 
thought or action. His personal excellence 
is certainly without a stain or a shadow. 
His intellect, it is scarcely too much to say, 
is among the clearest, richest and prof ound- 
est ever vouchsafed to man. Indeed, it 
seems to us, that in the faculty of abstract 
thinking — in, so to say, the sphere of pure 
thought — he has few, if any living rivals. 
Every cultivated person of the slighest 
metaphysical turn who has heard Alexander 
Campbell in the pulpit, or in the social cir- 
cle, must have been especially impressed by 
the wonderful facility with which his facul- 
ties move in the highest planes of thought. 
Ultimate facts stand forth as boldly in his 
consciousness as sensations do in that of 
most other men. He grasps and handles the 
highest, sublimest and most comprehensive 
principles as if they were the liveliest im- 
pressions of the senses. No poet's soul is 
more crowded with imagery than is his 
with the ripest forms of thought. Surely 
the life of a man thus excellent and gifted 
is a part of the common treasure of so- 
ciety. In his essential character he belongs 
to no party, but to the world. — Geo. D. 
Prentice, in Louisville Journal. 



—74— 



CHAPTER VII. 

A Change; of Leaders. 

With the change of views on the subject of bap- 
tism on the part of these reformers, there came also, 
in the most natural way, without any formal declara- 
tion, and certainly without the least friction, a 
change in the relative positions of Alexander Camp- 
bell and his father, Thomas Campbell. It now be- 
came evident to all, and to none more than to 
Thomas Campbell, that henceforth the duty of leader- 
ship and of the defense of the principles they had 
espoused, must devolve upon the younger of these 
two reformers, who, both by natural endowment and 
by the superior energy and strength which belonged 
to his young manhood, was better fitted for this 
position. The son never ceased to pay due deference 
to the father and to consult him in all matters of in- 
terest to the movement; but he recognized the fact 
that Providence had laid on him the responsibility of 
leadership, and he accepted it courageously, relying 
humbly upon God for widsom and strength, and 
calling no man master. 

WHAT MANNER OF MAN. 

The world, even the religious world, has yet to 
become acquainted with the character, the reinark- 

—75— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

able ability and high Christian ideals of Alexander 
Campbell. It will not be out of place to submit just 
here the testimony of a few competent judges as to the 
quality of the man who now assumes the reins of 
leadership in this Reformation of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. In 1875, on commencement day of Bethany 
College, Judge Jeremiah Black, of Pennsylvania, who 
was Attorney-General of the United States under 
Buchanan, unveiled a bust of Alexander Campbell, 
and in his speech on the occasion paid him the fol- 
lowing remarkable tribute 

According to my apprehension, his career was most heroic. 
In support of those truths which divine revelation had taught 
him, he encountered the opposition of the whole world, to say 
nothing of the flesh and the devil. Friends fled from his side 
while enemies met him in front and hung upon his flank and 
rear. The life of a Christian man worthy of his vocation, is a 
battle at best. The similes with which Paul describes it are con- 
stantly drawn from the struggles of the warrior and the athlete. 
He of whom I speak contended valiantly for the faith once de- 
livered to the saints, not only against the natural allies of Satan, 
but against errors which seemed to be consecrated by the appro- 
bation of good men; creeds, imbedded in prejudice; falsehood, 
guarded by interests which the slightest disturbance infuriated. 
It was a war * 'against principalities and powers and spiritual 
wickedness in high places." 

The little band of disciples that gathered around him at first, 
and whom the world in derision called by his name, were as lit- 
erally the sect "everywhere spoken against" as their predecessors 
in primitive times. 

To effect a great reformation under such circumstances; to 
convince large numbers of men against their will; to organize the 

—76— 



The; Story of a Century. 

believers into a compact and powerful body; to conquer the re- 
spect of the world; these are proofs of intellectual ability and 
moral force with which only a few of the children of men have 
been gifted. To these qualities were added an unfailing courage, 
a fortitude that nothing could shake, a chivalrous sense of jus- 
tice to his opponents and affection for his friends, second only to 
his love for the cause to which he had devoted his life. What 
higher claims can any man set up to the character of a hero? 

When we estimate his talents and virtues by the practical 
results of their exercise, we must remember that he wrought out 
his success solely by appeals to the hearts, reason and con- 
sciences of his fellow men. Others have made as deep a mark 
upon the history of the race, but nearly all of them were backed 
by political power, or aided by unworthy passions. It is easy to 
account for their achievements without supposing them to possess 
much strength of their own. Standing behind a steam engine, 
even a weak man may make some progress in removing a moun- 
tain, but he who scatters it abroad with his naked hands incon- 
testibly belongs to the breed of the Titans. 

When I speak thus of his merely human dimensions, I do 
not undervalue the power of the gospel. But the qualities of 
mind and heart which glorify truth, make the man illustrious in 
his personal character. He was invincible by virtue of the divine 
armor with which he was clothed; still, it is only just to say that 
he filled it grandly, wore it always, and never sunk beneath its 
weight. The weapon that glittered in his hand was the sword of 
the Spirit; but without the sweep of that long arm its celestial 
temper would not have been proved. 

After crediting his coadjutors with their full share of the 
common work, he is still without a rival to come near him. 
Many of them were tall in their intellectual stature, but, look- 
ing through the host, it is neither detraction nor flattery to say 
that— 

" He above the rest 
In shape and stature proudly eminent 
Stood like a tower." 

—77— 



The Story of a Century. 

He was a thoroughly trained scholar, a life-long student, with in- 
dustry to which mere idleness would have been pain. He never 
unbent from mental exertion except in conversation. He was 
indeed a most wonderful talker. No one, I think, ever joined 
him in these social recreations without being instructed and de- 
lighted. His pen was extremely prolific. His writings are so 
voluminous that we can not but wonder how he found time to 
accomplish the mere mechanical labor. 

As a great preacher he will be remembered with unequal, 
ed admiration by all who had the good fortune to hear him in 
the prime of his life. The interest which he excited in a great 
congregation can hardly be explained. From the first sentence 
to the close every word was heard with rapt attention. It did not 
appear to be eloquence. It was not the "enticing words of man's 
wisdom;" the arts of the orator seemed to be inconsistent with the 
grand simplicity of his character. It was logic, explanation and 
argument, so clear that everybody followed it without an effort, 
and all felt that it was raising them to the level of a superior 
mind. Prejudice melted away under the easy flow of his elocu- 
tion. The clinching fact was always in its proper place, and the 
fine poetic illustration was ever at hand to shed its light on the 
theme. But all this does not account for the impressiveness of 
his speeches, and no analysis of them can give any idea of 
their power.* 

The celebrated and gifted George D. Prentice 
said in the Louisville Journal, after hearing Mr. 
Campbell preach: 

Alexander Campbell is unquestionably one of the most extra- 
ordinary men of our time. Putting wholly out of view his tenets, 
with which we have nothing to do, he claims by his intrinsic 
qualities, as manifested in his achievements, a place among the 
foremost spirits of the age. His energy, self-reliance and self- 
fidelity, if we may use the expression, are of the stamp that 
belongs only to the world's first leaders in thought or action # 

*I,ife of Jeremiah S. Black, pp. 72-76 

—78— 






The Story of a Century. 

His personal excellence is certainly without a stain or a shadow, 
His intellect, it is scarcely too much to say, is among the clearest, 
richest and profoundest ever vouchsafed to man. Indeed, it 
seems to us, that in the faculty of abstract thinking — in, so to 
say, the sphere of pure thought — he has few if any living rivals. 
Kvery cultivated person of the slightest metaphysical turn who 
has heard Alexander Campbell in the pulpit, or in the social circle, 
must have been especially impressed by the wonderful facility 
with which his faculties move in the highest planes of thought. 
Ultimate facts stand forth as boldly in his consciousness as sen- 
sations do in that of most other men. He grasps and handles the 
highest, sublimest and most comprehensive principles as if they 
were the liveliest impressions of the senses. No poet's soul is 
more crowded with imagery than is his with the ripest forms of 
thought. Surely the life of a man thus excellent and gifted is a 
part of the common treasure of society. In his essential charac- 
ter he belongs to no party, but to the world.* 

Ex- President Madison said of him: 

I regard him as the ablest and most original expounder of 
the Scriptures I have ever heard. 

Dr. Heman Humphrey, then president of Am- 
herst College, said of him: 

He speaks like a master of assembles; as one who has entire 
confidence in the mastery of his subject and his powers, and 
who expects to carry conviction to the minds of his hearers with- 
out any of the adventitious aids on which ordinary men find it 
necessary to rely. 

In his brochure on i 'Alexander Campbell as a 
Preacher," A. McLean, president of the Foreign 

♦I^ife of Jeremiah S, Black, pp. 76-78 

—79— 



The Story of a Century. 

Christian Missionary Society, speaking of the ver- 
satility of Mr. Campbell's genius, says: 

Alexander Campbell was a many-sided man. He was an au- 
thor and editor. Sixty volumes have his name on their title 
pages. He founded a college and was its president for a quarter 
of a century. He taught regularly all those years. He was a de- 
fender of the faith as he held it. He had oral discussions lasting 
for days with John Baptist Purcell, a Roman Catholic Bishop; 
with Robert Owen, of Lanark, the Secularist; and with several 
other of the strong men of their time. He had written discus- 
sions with skeptics, Jews, Unitarians, Universalists, Baptists and 
Pedobaptists. These discussions covered nearly all questions re- 
lating to Christian doctrine and to church polity. Mr. Campbell 
was a man of affairs. He married and raised a family. He was 
the father of fourteen children. He managed a large business 
and made money. He served the state that adopted him. He 
was a member of the constitutional convention of Virginia. He 
sat in council with ex-president Madison, with chief justice Mar- 
shall, with Randolph of Roanoke, and with many other of the 
illustrious men of the old commonwealth. Mr. Campbell was a 
conversationalist worthy to rank with Luther and Johnson and 
Macaulay and Coleridge. 

And yet this great reformer, with these transcen- 
dent powers wholly consecrated to the work of re- 
ligious reform, is ofteu conceived by the ministry 
and religious editors of to-day as a narrow partisan 
holding some extreme theories about baptism! It is 
no uncommon thing for public speakers and authors 
of books, in enumerating the great preachers and the 
great movements of the nineteenth century, to omit 

even the slightest reference to this greatest reformer 

—80— 



The: Story of a Century. 

of the century, and the religious movement which he 
inaugurated. But this is not exceptional. It is the 
usual fate of great reformers, in every sphere of life, 
to be compelled to wait until future times for their 
vindication. 



(6) -81- 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Learners of Christ. 



"It is now plain to every one that truth 
is not given all at once, and in the nature 
-of the case can not be, but is slowly devel- 
oped through long processes of thinking 
as experience accumulates and knowledge 
advances. Every church, therefore, needs 
to be very hospitable to new truth from 
whatever quarter it may come, whether 
from science and from advancing history, 
or from the criticism of history, secular and 
religious, or from the developing moral na- 
ture and insight of the religious communi- 
ty. Of course, if any church is founded on 
some petty whim or prejudice, or if any 
church has staked its authority on obsolete 
science or disproved history, such church 
must object to freedom of thought, with 
the sure result that sooner or later it will 
be abandoned of God and man, unless it 
bring forth fruits meet for repentance. But 
all other churches, if they have faith in 
God, must also have faith that truth will do 
no harm and can not itself be finally harmed. 
As Lowell has it, 'God's universe is fire- 
proof and it is safe to strike a match. ' ' ' — 
"Studies in Christianity/' ~by Prof. Borden 
Parker Bowne. 



-84— 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Learners of Christ. 

At this point it might be well to recall the steps 
of progress which had, thus far, been made under 
the leadership of Thomas and Alexander Campbell, 
since the inauguration of their movement to pro- 
mote Christian union. 

i . Their first step was to clearly appprehend the 
evils of division among Christians, as contrary to 
the mind of Christ and the teaching of the apostles, 
and to feel the necessity of an earnest effort to 
bring about that unity for which Jesus prayed. 

2. They next saw that the desired unity could 
not be brought about on any of the existing creeds 
of Christendom, and they, therefore, urged that all 
such creeds be rejected in so far as they have been 
made standards of authority and bases of union. 
This was not a repudiation of the doctrines of the 
creeds, but of the use made of them in promot- 
ing division. They rejected no evangelical doc- 
trine of the creeds. 

3. In repudiating human creeds as tests of fel- 
lowship and terms of union and communion, they 

—85— 



The; Story of a Century. 

fell back upon the Holy Scriptures as the only 
infallible and authoritative rule of faith and practice, 
and urged the strictest conformity to their teaching, 
and especially to the New Testament, which is 
designed for Christians as their guide in faith, doc- 
trine and duty. 

4. In turning to the Bible, and the Bible alone, 
as their rule of faith and conduct, they discovered 
what is the real object of Christian faith, and what 
was the original confession of faith — that it was not 
doctrinal, but personal; not what but whom we 
believe — namely, the confession of the Lord Jesus 
Christ as the Son of God and Saviour.* This confes- 
sion, they saw, included all that Christ was, and 
taught, and commanded, being simple enough for a 
child to make, centered as it is in a person, and yet 
comprehensive enough for the wisest Christian phi- 
losopher. 

5. Having taken their place now at the feet of 
Christ to learn of him, they saw that baptism was 
an ordinance which he had instituted for believers 
in him, who might thus express their faith in, and 
surrender to him. By a fresh and original study of 
the New Testament, they saw, by the very meaning 
of the word in the original, and by the practice of 
the apostles, and by the symbolic character of the 
ordinance, that it involves immersion — a burial in 

*Matt. 16.13, 18. 

—86— 



The Story of a Century. 

and resurrection from the water. This^ necessary 
union of faith with baptism, in order that the latter 
might have any efficacy, they had come to see ren- 
dered useless and harmful the practice of infant bap- 
tism, and they had accordingly omitted it from their 
program of reform. 

It must be admitted by every candid reader that 
these steps marked distinct progress in the work of 
religious reform. None of these things were seen at 
first to be involved in their declaration of principles, 
the discarding of creeds and the acceptance of the 
Bible alone as authoritative; but as they had come 
to see what the teaching of Christ and his apostles 
required of them, they had conformed their teaching 
and practice thereto. Like Saul of Tarsus, who had 
seen the vision of the glorified Christ, they were 
"not disobedient to the heavenly vision. n At no time 
in the past, and not even at the point at which they 
had now arrived, did they regard themselves as hav- 
ing attained to a full knowledge of the truth. But 
they were following after, if they might apprehend 
that for which they had been apprehended by 
Christ. It was this spirit that made them truly Dis- 
ciples, that is, Learners of Christ. As the biog- 
rapher of Mr. Campbell says: 

During their course thus far, this band of reformers had rec- 
ognized themselves to be, not a sect, with its truths and errors 
equally stereotyped, and equally immutable, but a. party of prog- 
ress— as learners in the school of Christ. " Whereto they had 

—87— 



The Story of a Century. 

attained" they endeavored "to walk by the same rule and to 
mind the same things." In seeking for the "old paths" they had, 
thus far, found each new truth to lead them to another still 
more obvious as a single track often guides the traveler, lost in 
the forest, to a pathway, which in turn conducts him to one still 
wider and more easily pursued.* 

There were further truths not as yet seen which 
had yet to be learned, and even those we have men- 
tioned above were to be apprehended in a much 
clearer light, together with all the implications con- 
tained in them. Had they been content to have 
stereotyped the views to which they had then at- 
tained, other reformers must necessarily have fol- 
lowed them to carry on their uncompleted work. It 
is equally true to-day of that same movement which 
they inaugurated, that if it becomes content with its 
past attainments in knowledge, and allows them to 
become stereotyped, either in a written or unwritten 
creed, refusing to keep an open mind for a larger 
and fuller apprehension of God's unfolding truth, its 
mission as a reformation will have ended and others 
must take up the work and carry it on to comple- 
tion. 

But the steps above enumerated had separated 
them from the Pedobaptist world, with which they 
had hitherto been identified, and they were accused 
of starting a new sector party, even while denouncing 
the evils of division, and pleading for Christian 

♦Memoirs of Thomas Campbell, p. 404, 

—8$— 



The Story of a Century. 

union. It is in evidence that they felt keenly this re- 
proach, and sought, in every possible way, to avoid it. 

Referring to this charge Mr. Campbell said: 

Am I asked why I am not a party man? Or why I do not join 
some party? I ask, in return, which party would the Apostle 
Paul join if now on earth? Or, in other words, which party 
would receive him* 

He further explains why he cannot be a party 
man; that is, join any existing ecclesiastical organ- 
ization, by saying that u the parties oppose reforma- 
tion. They all pray for it, but they will not work 
for it. None of them dare return to the original 
standard." That one could be a Christian simply 
without any prefix or affix and without acknowledg- 
ing allegiance to any human creed or to any existing 
ecclesiastical organization was something not readily 
admitted, and by some not easily comprehended. 

Notwithstanding these convictions, there were two 
outstanding facts which were destined to influence 
the course of these reformers. One of these was 
their utter disinclination to add another to the exist- 
ing independent religious bodies. The other was, 
that the steps which they had now taken brought 
them into close sympathy, on many points, with 
another great religious body, namely, the Baptists. 
Was there sufficient oneness of faith, and teaching, 

♦Memoirs of Thomas Campbell, p. 353, 

—89— 



The Story of a Century. 

and aim, between these reformers and the Baptists 
to enable them to coalesce and work together for the 
nnity and purity of the church? History was yet to 
answer that question. 



—90— 



CHAPTER IX. 
Union With The Baptists, 



Looking r ~ rai past history, it is lifficnlt 
tc say what w old have 3en the fortunes 
of A ampt d] 

ng its first twe 11 three lee lea if it 
I not foon I 
amcL^ the Baptists. It : nly ~:uld 
not ] ".: the remark: ::Le 

whicl] Listrrv. TAis is 

s fact il] mast not i pet 7"_e inflnenee 
of our connection with the ts on -'-i 3 

entire his: err f :ke : :? a sub- 

ject worthy jf onr most appre 
In this respect we :~ e mnch tc the 
tists in spit id fact tl 

: ft-ei 

nents. — Prof. C. L. Loos, t f *Refc 
if the N . : . . . -' ; 






CHAPTER IX. 

Union With The Baptists. 

When it became known among the Baptists that 
the church at Brush Run, under the leadership of 
Thomas and Alexander Campbell, had adopted im- 
mersion as the scriptural form of baptism, and that 
they now held and taught that only penitent believ- 
ers were proper subjects of baptism, and that their 
views of church government were very similar to 
those of Baptists, favoring the autonomy of each lo- 
cal church, they quite naturally made overtures to 
the Campbells to identify themselves with the Bap- 
tist Association in whose bounds the church was lo- 
cated. They regarded it as no small triumph for 
Baptist principles that these two able and independ- 
ent reformers, pursuing their investigations with the 
single purpose of ascertaining what was the mind of 
Christ concerning his church and its ordinances, had 
reached conclusions for which the Baptists had stood 
for so long a time. It is to their credit that they 
made overtures for union, feeling that there was 
enough held in common between themselves and these 
reformers to justify such union. The Campbells were 

—93— 



The Story of a Century. 

disinclined at first to consider favorably the proposi- 
tion looking to union for reasons previously stated, but 
further acquaintance with the Baptist people, with 
whom Alexander Campbell was better pleased than 
with the ministers of that section, in that day, and 
the strong desire to avoid a new and independent 
movement, caused them to decide that, on certain 
conditions, their church would become identified with 
the Redstone Baptist Association. The question was 
brought before the Brush Run church in the autumn 
of 1813, and the church drew up a statement of its 
religious position at that tim^, and expressed a will- 
ingness to unite with the Association above mention- 
ed on the simple condition that they be " allowed to 
teach and preach whatever they learned from the 
Holy Scriptures." It is evident from this condition 
that neither the Campbells nor their followers at this 
time regarded themselves as having learned all that 
the Scriptures might require of them, and they in- 
sisted on the liberty which they had hitherto exer- 
cised, of conforming their teaching and practice to 
any new truths which they might learn. 

This document was presented to the Redstone As- 
sociation, and after no little debate it was voted to 
receive the Brush Run church on the conditions 
stated. Thus was brought about the union of these 
reformers with the Baptists, which was destined to 
make an indelible mark in religious history. Not all 

—94— 



The Story of a Century. 

the Baptists were favorable to the union. Some of 
the more conservative ministers feared that this 
avowed purpose of the reformers of conforming their 
teaching and practice to any new discoveries of truth 
might be the means of introducing innovations among 
the Baptists, which would be out of harmony with 
their historic position. Even at that time Alexander 
Campbell, the acknowledged leader of the reformers, 
held views out of harmony with the teaching of the 
Baptists of that day. These differences especially re- 
lated (i ) to the place and purpose of baptism in the 
Christian system; (a) the administration of the 
Lord's Supper; (3) the nature and means of regen- 
eration; (4) the relation between the old and new 
covenants, and, as summing up all of these, (5) the 
recognition on the part of Mr. Campbell and those 
who stood with him of the need of religious reform- 
ation, and a much closer conformity to New Testa- 
ment teaching, with the view of bringing about the 
unity of a divided church. In addition to the fore- 
going, the Baptists of the Redstone Association had 
accepted the Philadelphia Confession of Faith as their 
creed, which contained points of doctrine to which 
Mr. Campbell could not subscribe. In spite of these 
differences, Mr. Campbell regarded the Baptists as 
more closely conformed to New Testament teaching 
than any existing religious body, and freer in spirit 

to adopt principles of reform than others, and no 

—95— 



The Story of a Century. 

doubt hoped that a closer contact with them would 
tend to lessen their differences, and to advance the 
principles of reform which he held to be important. 

Now that Mr. Campbell was regarded as a Bap- 
tist minister he had free access to Baptist churches 
wherever he went, and he never failed to present his 
ideas of religious reform. Proud of the new champion 
of their cause, the Baptists selected Mr. Campbell to 
conduct two debates for them, one with Mr. Walker 
in 1820, and the other with Mr. Maccalla in 1823. 
These debates gave Mr. Campbell a great opportunity 
for bringing his views of the Scriptures to the atten- 
tion of Baptists, many of whom were ready to accept 
them. Nevertheless, the opposition which existed to 
Mr. Campbell in the beginning of this union on the 
part of a certain element, was intensified by a sermon 
on the law, which he delivered at one of their associ- 
ations, in which he contrasted the two covenants, 
showing that Christians are not under law, but under 
grace; not under Moses, but under Christ; not under 
the old covenant, but under the new. So bitter be- 
came the opposition that Mr. Campbell and the Brush 
Run Church voluntarily withdrew from the Associa- 
tion, and identified themselves with the Mahoning 
Association in the Western Reserve, which proved 
far more favorable to the reformation which Mr. 
Campbell urged. This Association ultimately be- 
came identified with the Reformatory movement of 

—96— 



The Story of a Century. 

Mr. Campbell. And so it came about that at the end 
of a period of about fifteen years this union between 
the Baptists and the reformers ended, and henceforth 
the churches identified with the Reformation were 
regarded as independent of the Baptists and of any 
other existing religious organization. 



(7) —97— 



CHAPTER X. 

Mr. Campbell's Task Outlined. 



How can we stand fast in the liberty 
wherewith Christ has made us free, while 
standing fast also in the unity wherewith 
Christ hath made us one? Roman Catholicism 
secured union of a kind, but it sacrificed 
liberty. Protestantism secured liberty, but 
at the sacrifice of union. Are these two 
principles, then, essentially antagonistic, 
the one to the other? Are they mutually 
exclusive terms, so that they who enjoy the 
one must do so at the sacrifice of the other? 
This can not be, for Christ not only 
taught both union and liberty as princi- 
ples of his kingdom, but he enjoined them 
upon his followers. How can they be rec- 
onciled? . . . Liberty in Christ and union 
through loyalty to Christ — that is the har- 
monization of these two principles of the 
gospel. Loyalty to all that Christ has com- 
manded — that gives us unity. Loyalty to 
Christ only, and the rejection of all human 
authority in religion — that gives us liberty. 
— "Christian Union: A Historical Study/ 9 
by J. H. Garrison* 



—100— 



CHAPTER X. 

Mr. Campbeu/s Task Outlined. 

With the severance of ecclesiastical relations with 
the Baptists, the religious movement inaugurated by 
the Campbells entered a new phase of its existence 
and came to that degree of self-consciousness as an 
independent movement which enabled it to face its 
own future. Perhaps at this point it would be appro- 
priate to outline the work which Mr. Campbell con- 
ceived as the task which Providence had set before 
him. Roman Catholicism had accentuated unity and 
sacrificed liberty, resulting in religious despotism. 
Protestantism accentuated liberty and sacrificed unity, 
resulting in division, or religious anarchy. How 
can these two principles, both of which seem to be 
taught in the Scriptures, and to be vital to religion, 
be harmonized and preserved in the church? Has 
the church ever confronted a more important problem 
in all its history than that? To the solution of this 
problem Mr. Campbell devoted his superior talents, 
his religious genius, his learning and his life-long 
labors. We can not do better than to quote here 
what seems to us an admirable statement of the 

—101— 






The: Story of a Century. 

problem, from a work entitled il Alexander Campbell's 
Theology," in relation to the task which confronted 
Protestantism at the beginning of the last century. 

"The task of philosophy in the nineteenth cen- 
tury may be described in the most general terms as 
an attempt to transcend the individualism which 
was developed by the eighteenth; i. e., to use it, to 
control it, to pass beyond it to a unity which shall 
embody but shall not crush it. 

"The problem of the religious world at the open- 
ing of the nineteenth century was a similar one. 
Protestant individualism had been fully developed on 
the side of division and separation. That this could 
not be endured as a permanent condition was evi- 
denced by the many unsuccessful attempts to restore 
unity. The conditions of the problem and the need 
of a solution have now been brought clearly to light. 
The need of the hour was for the discovery of a prin- 
ciple of synthesis by which, without restricting the 
liberty of any man, a practical and effective union of 
religious forces might be obtained. The problem 
was to transcend religious individualism by finding 
a basis for religious solidarity. 

u The whole history of Protestantism had been a 
continual demonstration of the impossibility of unit- 
ing on the basis of a complete theology, even a 
professedly biblical theology. The exercise of the 
right of private judgment is a guarantee that there 

—102— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

will always be many differences of opinion as to what 
the Bible teaches upon certain points of doctrine. 
The attempt to reduce Christianity to its simplest 
and purest form by emphasis upon the feeling of the 
individual as the criterion of religion, had quickened 
and enthused the church but had contributed little to 
the solution of the problem of unity. Equally un- 
successful, and far more disastrous, had been the 
opposite attempt to get at the essentials of Chris- 
tianity by a process of pure reason, based on a theory 
of knowledge the foundation of which was the sense 
perception of the individual. The significance of 
Alexander Campbell's contribution to the question of 
Christian union is that he took the matter up just at 
this point, and proposed another principle of union. 
The unity of the church is to be based, not upon a 
complete system of biblical or dogmatic theology, nor 
upon anything which is to be found within the indi- 
vidual himself; but upon the authority of Christ and 
the terms which he has laid down as the conditions 
of salvation. 

"Mr. Campbell frequently spoke of his movement 
as an attempt to secure union 'upon the Bible', 
but it was evident from the whole course of his 
thought that this did not mean union upon his in- 
terpretation of the teaching of the Bible upon every 
point of Christian doctrine. The latter would have 
been simply a reaffirmation of the old dictum that 

—103— 



The: Story of a Century. 

'the Bible and the Bible alone is the religion of 
Protestants.' It was rather Mr. Campbell's idea that 
the Bible is to be taken as the authority for deter- 
mining what is essential in Christianity. But the 
whole Bible is not taken up with depicting original 
and essential Christianity. Therefore the real basis 
of unity is not the entire biblical teaching upon all 
points, about many of which there would be dif- 
ferences of interpretation, but the practice of the early 
church under the guidance of the apostles, represent- 
ing the authority of Christ. The question to be 
answered is, What did the apostles, taught by Christ, 
consider the essentials of a church? 

4 'This distinction between union on the Bible, in 
in the sense of union on all the doctrines which each 
individual conceives to be taught in the Bible, and 
union on the Bible, in the sense of union on the bibli- 
cal statements regarding the essentials of Chris- 
tianity is an important one to bear in mind, as it helps 
to define the position which Mr. Campbell's theology 
occupied in his general scheme of thought. His the- 
ology was his interpretation of the teaching of 
Scripture on a great many points, and it shows the 
influence of some contemporary systems of theology 
and philosophy. But he did not make his theology 
his basis for union. For example, he conceived that 
faith, repentance and baptism were essentials of 

Christianity, and were therefore included in the basis 

—104— 



The Story of a Century. 

of union. But his interpretation of the nature of 
faith, the manner in which the Holy Spirit operates 
in conversion, and the design of baptism in the 
scheme of redemption were parts of his theology 
which he taught as truths but did not erect into tests 
of fellowship. 

" While his whole movement was a revolt against 
the results of eighteenth century individualism, as 
manifested in the condition of Christendom as divided 
into innumerable sects, Mr. Campbell revolted also 
no less against its method, namely, the self-de- 
pendence of the individual in matters of religion. 
He concurred with the general movement of the 
eighteenth century in desiring a reduction of Chris- 
tianity to its essential elements, but he differed from 
it in asserting that Christianity could never be re- 
duced to its essential elements through the exercise 
of the unaided human reason, or through dependence 
upon the emotions of man. There must be neces- 
sarily a return to authority for the establishment of 
the essential basis of religion. The unity, therefore, 
comes not from within, but from without. Given the 
individual as defined according to Locke's philosophy, 
and there can be within him no universal element to 
serve as a basis of unity or as a means of attaining 
such a basis. 

"Stated in his own terms, then, Mr. Campbell's 
movement would be defined as an attempt to unite 



The Story of a Century. 

Christendom by a restoration of the essential elements 
of primitive Christianity as defined by the Scriptures. 
He was strongly of the opinion that nobody before 
had ever seriously attempted such a restoration on 
such a basis. All previous sects and dissenting 
bodies had been built on creeds and confessions with 
only a nominal, or, if real, a short-lived return to the 
authority of Scripture. He recognized the fact, it is 
true, that there had been a few scattered individuals, 
through the two centuries which preceded his work, 
who had grasped this idea, but there had never yet 
been any serious attempt to apply the principle to 
the solution of the problem. 'Not until within the 
present generation,' says Mr. Campbell, 'did any 
sect or party in Christendom unite and build upon 
the Bible alone. Since that time the first effort 
known to us, to abandon the whole controversy about 
creeds and reformations and to restore primitive 
Christianity, cr to build alone upon the apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ himself the chief Corner Stone, 
has been made.' Attempts had been made, to be 
sure, to deduct from the Scriptures complete systems 
of theology, and to make these the bases of successive 
reformations of the church. But his own movement 
differed from these in seeking for the authoritatively 
given conditions of salvation and making these alone, 
as the essentials of Christianity, the basis for the 
unity of the Church. There may be differences of 

—106— 



The: Story of a Century. 

theory about the facts of the gospel, but the facts 
themselves are sure. There may be differences of 
interpretation in regard to many doctrines taught in 
the Bible, but, when all prejudices and preconceived 
opinions have been set aside, there is little room for 
differences in regard to the few simple commands, 
obedience to which was the only condition of en- 
trance to the church in the days of the apostles. 

"Stated in a word, Mr. Campbell's method of 
effecting the reconciliation between the liberty of the 
individual and the unity of the whole body, was a 
return to authority for essentials and the admission 
of individual differences in non-essentials."* 

This problem, then, which Mr. Campbell set for 
himself and for the movement he inaugurated, and 
the solution which he proposed, is the key by which 
alone we can enter into any proper understanding of 
his own life-work, and of the results which have been 
achieved by him, and by those who are seeking to 
carry forward the work which he began. In the light 
of this purpose and principle, we shall seek to epit- 
omize the chief results of the Reformation which is 
now approaching its first Centennial anniversary. 



* "Alexander Campbell's Theology," by W. 1$ Garrison, Ph. D., pp. 67-74. 
—107— 



CHAPTER XI. 
Some op Mr. Campbell's Co-Laborers. 



Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, 
"Walter Seott and E. Richardson — what il- 
lustrious names! How lofty they rise be- 
fore us ill the history of our past, of the 
heroic days of the mighty battle for the 
faith, the doctrine and life of the primitive 
church! How worthy their lives of our 
reverence and love! — C. L. Loos, in Re- 
formation of tlxe Nineteenth Century. 
▼ ▼ ▼ 

Iyives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time. 

—Longfellow. 



—110- 




Walter Scott. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Some of Mr. Campbell's Co-laborers. 

We have already noted the important part taken 
by Thomas Campbell in the initial steps of the Re- 
formation, and of his special fitness for this work. 
Until the end of his long life he continued to be an 
adviser and helper of his son, who had become the 
real leader of the movement. In addition to him there 
came to Mr. Campbell's side, other men who seem 
to have been pre-eminently fitted for the parts which 
they performed in carrying forward the work of re- 
ligious reformation. It is proper, even in this outline 
view of the Reformation, that a brief sketch be giv- 
en of some of the chief men who, in an earlier period f 
stood with Mr. Campbell in that Reformation which 
he was leading, and who made their own special 
contributions to it. 

I. WALTER SCOTT. 

In about the year 1818 there landed in New York 
a young Scotch Presbyterian of good family and fine 
education, named Walter Scott, who, like many an- 
other aspiring young man, in the Old World, had 

—ill— 



The Story of a Century. 

determined to seek his fortune in the New. He was 
born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, October 31, 1796 
He is described as a man of striking appearance. 
He had received a fine classic education at the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, and was a man of rich literary 
culture and broad reading. He made the journey 
from New York to Pittsburg on foot with some ac. 
quaintances which he had formed in New York. At 
Pittsburg he became acquainted with a countryman 
of his, Mr. Forrester, who was a school teacher in 
that city, and became his assistant in conducting the 
school. During this time he formed the acquain- 
tance of a Mr. Richardson, at whose home he 
was wont to spend, occasionally, a pleasant social 
evening, and thus became acquainted with his oldest 
son, Robert Richardson, then thirteen years of age, 
who was destined to perform an important part in 
the Reformation. Under Mr. Forrester's teaching 
Walter Scott had yielded his prejudice and former 
convictions, and had been immersed, and soon suc- 
ceeded Mr. Forrester in the management of the 
school, in which young Robert Richardson now be- 
came an earnest student. Walter Scott had a pro- 
foundly religious nature, and the seed of the Word 
which had fallen into his heart found rich soil. He 
soon became wholly absorbed in the study of the 
Bible and of religious problems. Dr. Richardson 
says of him at this period: 

—112— 



The Story of a Century. 

Kvery moment that could be spared from necessary duties was 
devoted to the Bible, which had become to him a new book, 
opening up to his astonished mind a world of wonders, of which* 
amidst the misty atmosphere of sectarianism, he hardly 
dreamed. Especially was he enraptured with the simplicity of 
the gospel, so different from the involved and complex theolog- 
ical systems of the day . . . Possessing an extraordinary power of 
analysis and classification, he was soon enabled to arrange the 
Scripture teaching under its appropriate heads or subjects, and 
to resolve the divine plan of redemption into its constituent ele- 
ments. Having at the same time an ardent fancy, he saw in the 
simple facts of the gospel and in its expressive ordinances a 
power which he believed capable of breaking down all barriers 
of religious partyism and carrying salvation to the end of the 
earth. 

Dr Richardson further says of him: 

Above all things, he seemed to be impressed with the Divine 
glory of the Redeemer in all his personal and official relations. 
In the exercise of his analytical power, he soon discovered that 
the testimonies of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written 
for one great, specific object, and that this was to prove the 
proposition that "Jesus is the Christ, the son of God," and 
that this constitutes the central truth and the great essential 
element of Christianity. He had thus, by a different process, 
reached the same standpoint which Mr. Campbell had attained 
in eliminating from the Christian faith everything that was for- 
eign to its nature. Upon this theme Mr. Scott delighted to 
dwell. . . . The beauty of the character of Christ seemed to be 
the subject of his continual meditation and the model of his 
daily life.* 

Growing thin and pale from his arduous labors 
and studies, he was invited by young Richardson, 

*Menioirs, page 507. 

(8) —113— 






The Story of a Century. 

who was then his friend and companion as well as 
his pupil, to walk out of an evening to his father's 
garden in the vicinity of the city; "but his mind 
could not be divorced, amid such recreations, from the 
high theme which occupied him. Nature in all its 
forms seemed to speak to him only of the Creator; 
and although, gentle and affectionate as he was, he 
sought ever to interest himself in the things that in- 
terested others, his mind would constantly revert to 
its ruling thought, and some incident in their ram- 
ble, some casual remark in their conversation, would 
at once open up the fountain of religious thought 
that seemed to be ever seeking for an outlet.* 

While Walter Scott was engaged in teaching and 
preaching at Pittsburg, Mr. Campbell visited the 
city and formed his acquaintance. Dr. Richardson 
tells us that "they conceived for each other at once 
the warmest personal esteem — an esteem which was 
based, perhaps, less on those points of their respec- 
tive characters upon which they agreed, than upon 
those on which they differed. " It is a fact, 
often overlooked, that friendships and fellowships 
often find their foundation and justification in mat- 
ters of difference as well as in matters of likeness. 

Dr. Richardson's description of the differences and 
likenesses of the two men is so discriminating and 
clear, and presents such an admirable picture of the 

♦Memoirs, p, 508. 

—114— 



The; Story of a Century. 

two great men who were destined to be co-laborers 
in the same cause, that we can not do better than to 
copy the same from his Memoirs: 

Thus, while Mr Campbell was fearless, self-reliant and firm, 
Mr. Scott was naturally timid, diffident and yielding; and, while 
the former was calm, steady and prudent, the latter was excit- 
able, variable and precipitate. The one like the north star was 
ever in position, unaffected by terrestrial influences; the other 
like the magnetic needle, was often disturbed and trembling on 
its center, yet ever returning or seeking to return to its true di- 
rection. Both were nobly endowed with the powers of higher 
reason — a delicate self-consciousness, a decided will and a clear 
perception of truth. But, as it regards the other departments 
of the inner nature, in Mr. Campbell the understanding predom- 
inated, in Mr. Scott the feelings; and, if the former excelled in 
imagination, the latter was superior in brilliancy of fancy. If 
the tendency of one was to generalize, to take wide and extend- 
ed views, and to group a multitude of particulars under a single 
head or principle, that of the other was to analyze, to divide sub- 
jects into their particulars and consider their dejtails. If the one 
was disposed to trace analogies and evolve the remotest corre- 
spondences of relations, the other delighted in comparisons and 
sought for the resemblances of things. If the one pos- 
sessed the inductive power of the philosopher, the other 
had, in a more delicate musical faculty and more active ideality, 
a larger share of the attributes of the poet. In a word, in almost 
all those qualities of mind and character which might be regard- 
ed differential or distinctive, they were singularly fitted to sup- 
ply each other's wants and to form a rare and delightful com- 
panionship. Nor were their differences in personal appearance 
and physical constitution less striking or less susceptible of 
agreeable contrast. For while Mr. Campbell was tall, vigorous 
and athletic, Mr. Scott was not above the average height, slender 
and rather spare in person and possessed of little muscular 

—115— 



The: Story of a Century. 

strength. While the aspect of the one was ever lively and cheer- 
ful even in repose, that of the other was abstracted, meditative, 
and sometimes had even an air of sadness. Their features, too, 
were very different. Mr. Campbell's face had no straight lines 
in it. Even his nose, already arched, was turned slightly to the 
right, and his eyes and hair were comparatively light. Mr. 
Scott's nose was straight, his lips rather full, but delicately 
chiseled, his eyes dark and lustrous, full of intelligence and 
softness, and without the peculiar eagle glance so striking in 
Mr. Campbell, while his hair, clustering above his fine ample 
forehead, was black as the raven's wing. 

Such were some of the prominent contrasts of these two em- 
inent advocates of reformation, who were henceforth destined to 
share each other's labors and trials, to promote each other's dis- 
coveries of truth, and to emulate each other in their efforts to re- 
store the pure primitive apostolic gospel to the world.* 

Walter Scott, whose sketch we have just given, 
might well be called our pioneer evangelist. With 
the new light of the gospel which the Reformation 
had given him, his soul became aflame with zeal to 
preach this gospel to others in its simplicity, sub- 
limity and power. Like John the Baptist, he was "a 
bright and shining light" to many of the churches 
where he preached. With his analytical mind he had 
arranged the gospel into a simple order of facts, com- 
mands and promises which the ordinary people could 
easily understand. There were facts to be believed, 
commands to be obeyed and promises to be enjoyed. 
The gospel order, he held, was: (i) faith; (2) repent- 
ance; (3) baptism; (4) remission of sins; (5) the 
Holy Spirit. This analysis, while capable of becom- 

*Memoirs pp. 510-512. 

—116— 



The: Story of a Century. 

ing a mechanical formula with certain minds, possess- 
ed the advantage of being readily understood and 
clearing away a vast amount of vagueness and mysti- 
cism which had become associated with the subject of 
conversion. The formulation of the gospel in this 
order, together with a sublime emphasis upon the 
personal glory, majesty and official authority of Jesus 
Christ, who is the object of faith, may be said to be 
Walter Scott's distinct contribution to the Reforma- 
tion which he had so heartily espoused. He demon- 
strated the practicability of his method of presenting 
the gospel by his labors in the Western Reserve of 
Ohio, and rendered most valuable service to the cause 
in establishing the churches, especially of the Ma- 
honing Association, in their attitude toward the Re- 
formation. 

II. ROBERT RICHARDSON. 

It has already been noted that while teaching at 
Pittsburg Walter Scott had, as a student, a boy nam- 
ed Robert Richardson, to whom he became greatly 
attached, and who in turn felt a great attachment for 
his teacher. Under the careful instruction of Mr. 
Scott, Robert Richardson, though reared as an Epis- 
copalian, became convinced both of the truth and of 
the value of the principles taught by the advocates of 
the new Reformation. He had studied the Greek New 
Testament under his beloved teacher, and had thus 

—117— 



The Story of a Century. 

familiarized himself with the original sources of 
Christianity. He studied medicine, and became a 
practicing physician in his young manhood. Being 
fond of literature, he became the master of a fine lit- 
erary style. While Walter Scott was carrying on his 
evangelistic work on the Western Reserve, young Dr. 
Richardson traveled one hundred and twenty miles 
to tell his old teacher that he had come to the light 
of the u ancient gospel," and to seek baptism at his 
hands. The following characterization of him is 
given by Prof. Charles Louis I^oos, who knew him 
well: 

Robert Richardson was endowed with much more than ordinary 
intellectual gifts; and these he cultivated with great industry 
from early youth to his mature years. He was also in the truest 
sense of the word a man of intellectual and literary habits. He 
had reached good attainments in the classical tongues, and 
was well versed in French. His calling and mental inclinations 
led him to the study of natural sciences; he was Professor of 
hemistryand kindred sciences in Bethany College for nineteen 
years. Nature was a field he explored with passionate delight. 
He had a special predilection for the higher walks of literature. 
I question whether any man among us ever reached higher excel- 
lency in literary taste and culture than Dr. Richardson. Hi* 
writings testify to this* 

But Dr. Richardson's chief claim to distinction, ac- 
cording to the same authority, was his devotion to 
the Word of God and his unwearied study of that vol- 
ume — not simply the proof texts that he wished to 

* Reformation of the Nineteenth Century, pp. 76-77. 

—118— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

use to prove certain doctrines, but the whole Bible. 
He excelled as an expounder of the Scriptures and 
had a clear understanding of the principles of the Re- 
formation which he had accepted. What was more 
than these accomplishments still, was his profound 
piety, "He was thoroughly evangelical in his con- 
ceptions of the Bible and of Christianity ," as Prof. 
I*oos tells us, and as his writings prove. He combined 
the practice of medicine with the preaching of the 
gospel, and was also a constant writer. He went to 
Bethany in 1835 to assist Mr. Campbell in his work 
on the Millennial Harbinger, a monthly periodical 
which had succeeded the Christian Baptist. For 
twenty years he was associated intimately with Mr. 
Campbell, and his influence on the Reformation, as 
the older men among us will testify, was most salutary. 
His views of, and his teaching concerning, the Holy 
Spirit, were, in some respects, in advance of his co- 
laborers, and of the great majority of those who have 
come after him. His work on the Holy Spirit, and 
his Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, entitle him to 
an honored place among the great men who gave 
character, influence and direction to the Reforma- 
tion of the nineteenth century. We are indebted 
to the influence of such men as Dr. Richardson for 
the fact that the Reformation has been held within 
evangelical lines of thought, and saved from those 
hurtful extremes into which some of its professed ad- 

—119— 



The Story of a Century. 

vocates, from time to time, have been led. It is a 
matter for devout thanksgiving to us all that it can 
be said of the four great leaders whom we have 
sketched — Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Walter 
Scott and Robert Richardson — that they were not only 
soundly evangelical in thought, but deeply religious 
in life. Prof. Charles Louis L,oos, referring to them, 
says: 

The sincere piety that adorned and glorified the lives of these 
men, and so powerfully pervaded their teaching and preaching, 
must be preserved as a sacred legacy to us and our Cause. For 
nothing is more utterly false than that our fathers were mainly 
concerned to lead men to correct views* and to external obedience. 
The reverse of this is true. They were eminently pious men 
themselves, and in all their teaching strove to call men to godli- 
ness and holiness of life.* 

This testimony is from one now far past his four 
score years, who knew these great men intimately in 
their private and public life, and is a sufficient refuta- 
tion of the false views which many opponents of the 
Reformation have come to entertain concerning these 
reformers. This fact ought to be an inspiration to 
the younger men of the Reformation to hold up in 
their lives and in their teaching the same high ideals 
of personal piety, of evangelical faith, and of loyalty 
to Jesus Christ, which are presented in the lives and 
characters of these heroic men of the past. It argues 
much for the future of our Cause that its primal im- 

♦Reformation of the Nineteenth Century, p. 81, 

—120— 



Thk Story of a Century. 

pulse and shaping came from men who "walked with 
God" and whose deepest motive and all-absorbing 
passion was to glorify God, exalt his Son Jesus Christ, 
bring about the unity for which he prayed, and thus 
hasten the conversion of the world. 

There will, perhaps, be no better place for us to 
say a word concerning the unfortunate impression 
which has gone out very widely, that one of the im- 
portant things lacking in the religious movement in- 
augurated by these men is its failure to emphasize 
the spiritual side of Christianity, and that it has been 
chiefly concerned with the external. If this be true, 
to any extent, of certain advocates of the Reformation 
in the later times, it is certainly not true of the noble 
men who inaugurated the movement, nor is such a 
position consistent with the principles of the move- 
ment itself. Unfortunately, it is true of a certain type 
of mind that it can readily see what is formal and ex- 
ternal, but finds it exceedingly difficult to penetrate 
beneath the outward and formal into the very heart 
and soul which these outward forms and symbols are 
intended to express. We have had such men among 
us, and it is easy to understand how, through an em- 
phasis of certain neglected truths, there came to be, 
for a time, an tfzw-emphasis of such truths, with a 
corresponding under-emphasis of truths even more 
vital. This error in time corrects itself, and the move- 
ment is now in the process of this self-correction. 

—121— 



Thb Story :? a Ci>:tury. 

Nothing can be m:re important, at the present time, 
than to give such proportion to Dur teaching as will 
c:rre::the evil impression that has gone forth con- 
cerning our failure to apprehend ani appreciate the 
supremacy of the spiritual in Christianity. 



—122— 



CHAPTER XII. 

A Tributary Movement. 



As two streams, having independent 
sources in the high mountain ranges, in flow- 
ing onward to the sea, by the law of gravi- 
tation, often meet and mingle their waters 
in one river, broad enough and deep enough 
to carry vessels of commerce on its bosom, 
so the two independent religious movements 
— the one inaugurated by the Campbells 
and the other by Barton W. Stone — having 
the same general aim, the unity of God's 
children, naturally flowed together under 
the law of spiritual gravitation, when un- 
hindered by sectarian aims, forming a 
mighty stream of reformatory influence, 
whose effect has been felt in every part of 
the church universal. 



—124— 




Barton W. Stone. 



CHAPTER XII. 

A Tributary Movement. 

As stated in an earlier part of this sketch there 
were a number of independent movements in the 
early part of the previous century, which had for 
their common object a return to the simple faith and 
practice of the New Testament, with the view of 
correcting existing errors in the religious world, and 
thereby healing its divisions. The most important 
of these tributary movements, and the one which ob- 
tained the largest following, and which has exerted 
most permanent influence on the current Reforma- 
tion, is that associated with the name and labors 
of 

BARTON W. STONE. 

This remarkable man, remarkable no less for his 
deep piety than for his intellectual ability, was born 
near Port-Tobacco, in the state of Maryland, Decem- 
ber 24, 1772. His father dying when he was young, 
his widowed mother moved with the family to what 
was then the backwoods of Virginia, in 1799, during 
the Revolutionary War. His boyhood was spent 
amid the exciting scenes and events of the Revolu- 

—125— 



The Story of a Century. 

tion, and under the influence of the intense patriot- 
ism which moved the people of the colonies at that 
period. In early life he manifested an intense desire 
fol learning, preferring the company of books to 
that of his young companions. He became familiar 
with the Bible in the school which he attended. 
Early in life, too, he manifested a deep interest in 
religion, and sought to realize the religious expe- 
rience which was common in those days. At that 
time the war between the Methodists ani Baptists 
in that region was very bitter, ani his mini vacillat- 
ed between those two contending divisions of the 
Lord's army. Their contentions discouraged him, 
and he for a time v 'quit praying and gave himself tip 
to the youthful sports of the day. M When he was 
about sixteen years of age he went to v>hat was tben 
a noted academy in Guilford, North Carolina, and 
commenced the study o: Latin grammar. He made 
rapid progress in his studies, passing by a number of 
classes in his zeal for securing an education. Dar- 
ing his attendance at that institution James Mc- 
Gready, an earnest revivalist of that period, visited 
the region and preached. Young Stone heard him 
and —as deeply convicted of sin, and "resolved from 
that hotu to seek religion at the saerinee of every 
earthly good.* 1 In his Autobiography he says: 

According to the preaching, and the experience 
of the pious in those days, I anticipated a long and 






The Story of a Century. 

painful struggle before I should be prepared to come 
to Christ, or, in the language then used, before I 
should get religion. This anticipation was com- 
pletely realized by me. For one year I was tossed 
on the waves of uncertainty . . . laboring, praying, 
and striving to obtain saving faith . . . sometimes 
despondent, and almost despairing of ever getting 
it." This, of course was the result of the doctrine 
then taught, that mankind were so totally depraved 
that they could not believe, repent, nor obey the 
gospel, without regeneration, and that regeneration 
was an immediate work of the Spirit, by which faith 
and repentance were wrought in the heart. 

He continued to live a religious life, alternating 
between hope and despair — hope, when he would 
read in the Bible such texts as u God is love," but 
despairing on hearing the hyper-Calvinism of that 
day preached. He resolved, however, to devote 
himself to the ministry, and began to study with the 
view to equip himself for that work. He was con- 
fused by such theological works of the time as 
Witsius on the Trinity. He was very much discour- 
aged at the outlook, and being in a distressed condi- 
tion financially, he went to Georgia and secured a 
position as a teacher in an academy near Washing 
ton, conducted under the auspices of the Methodists. 
After teaching at this institution for something more 
than a year, he resigned and returned to North 

—127— 



The Story of a Century. 

Carolina, with the view of entering the ministry of 
the Presbyterian Church in the Orange Presbytery. 
He received license to preach, and made an appoint- 
ment in connection with another young candidate 
for the ministry, but before the day came their hearts 
failed them, and they left the neighborhood. Soon 
after, however, he was induced to preach, and "was 
enabled to speak with boldness and with profit to the 
people." He now determined to go west, through 
what was then a wilderness country infested by In- 
dians, to Western Tennessee and Kentucky. After 
Dreachinof a while in the neighborhood of Canerid^e 
and Concord, he made a trip to Charleston, South 
Carolina, for the purpose of soliciting funds for the 
establishment of a college in Kentucky, under the 
appointment of the Transylvania Presbytery. In 
this trip to the south he caught a glimpse of slavery 
which turned him against that institution, and 
caused him eventually to free his slaves. 

In the fall of 179S he returned to Kentucky by 
way of Virginia, where he visited his mother, and 
accepted a call from the united congregations cf 
Caneridge and Concord. He accepted the call, and 
the day was appointed for his ordination. When 
the time arrived, however, he stumbled at some of 
the doctrine taught in the Westminster Confession 
and decided to postpone his ordination. Those who 
were to conduct the service, however, took him aside 

—12s— 



The Story of a Century. 

and labored to remove his objections. "They asked 
me how far I was willing to receive the Confession. 
I told them as far as I saw it consistent with the 
Word of God. They concluded that was sufficient. 
I went into Presbytery, and when the question was 
proposed, 'Do you receive and adopt the Confession 
of Faith as containing the system of doctrine taught 
in the Bible?' I answered aloud, so that the whole 
congregation might hear, 4 I do, as far as I see it con- 
sistent with the word of God.' No objection being 
made, I was ordained." 

The following paragraph from his Autobiography 
gives a graphic description of the state of his mind 
at the time, and the type of theology then prevail- 
ing: 

About this time my mind was continually tossed on the waves 
of speculative divinity, the all-engrossing theme of the religious 
community at that period. Clashing, controversial opinions 
were urged by the different sects with much Zealand bad feeling. 
No surer sign of the low estate of true religion. I at that time 
believed, and taught, that mankind were so totally depraved 
that they could do nothing acceptable to God, till his Spirit, by 
some physical, almighty and mysterious power had quickened, 
enlightened, and regenerated the heart, and thus prepared the 
sinner to believe in Jesus for salvation. I began plainly to see 
that if God did not perform this regenerating work in all, it 
must be because he chose to do it for some and not for others, 
and that this depended on his own sovereign will and pleasure. 
It then required no depth of intellect to see that the doctrine is 
inseparably linked with unconditional election and reprobation, 
as taught in the Westminster Confession of Faith. They are vir- 
tually one; and this was the reason why I admitted the decree 
(9) —1-9— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

of election and reprobation, having admitted the doctrine of 
total depravity. They are inseparable. 

Scores of objections would continually roll across my mind 
against this system, These I imputed to the blasphemous sug- 
gestions of Satan, and labored to repel them as Satanic tempta- 
tions, and not honestly to meet them with scriptural arguments. 
Often when I was addressing the listening multitudes on the 
doctrine of total depravity, their inability to believe — and of the 
necessity of the physical power of God to produce faith; and then 
persuading the helpless to repent and believe the gospel, my 
zeal in a moment would be chilled at the contradiction. How 
can they believe? How can they repent? How can they do im- 
possibilities? How can they be guilty in not doing them? Such 
thoughts would almost stifle utterance, and were as mountains 
pressing me down to the shades of death. I tried to rest in the 
common salvo of that day, i. e., the distinction between natural 
and moral ability and inability. The pulpits were continually 
ringing with that doctrine; but to my mind it ceased to be a re- 
lief; for by whatever name it be called, that inability was in the 
sinner, and, therefore, he could not believe nor repent, but must 
be damned. Wearied with the works and doctrines of men, and 
distrustful of their influence, I made the Bible my constant com- 
panion, I honestly, earnestly and prayerfully sought for the 
truth, determined to buy it at the sacrifice of everything else.* 
^Autobiography of Barton W. Stone, pp. 30-31. 



—130— 



CHAPTER XIII. 
From Darkness to Light — A Great Revival 



The remembrance of that fateful gather- 
ing [the Cane Eidge revival] lingers in 
Kentucky after the lapse of a centurv. 
Xothing was lacking to stir to its pro- 
fondest depths the imagination and emotion 
of this great throng of men, women and 
children. It was at night that the most 
terrible scenes were witnessed, when the 
camp-fires blazed in a mighty circle around 
the vast audience of pioneers bowed in de- 
votion. Beyond was the blackness of the 
primeval forests; above, the night wind and 
the foliage and the stars. As the/darkness 
deepened, the exhortations of the preachers 
became more fervent and impassioned, their 
picturesque prophecies of doom more lurid 
and alarming, the volume of song burst all 
bonds of guidance and control, and broke 
again and again from the throats of the 
people, while over all, at intervals, there 
rang out the shout of ecstasy, the sob and 
the groan. — "Primitive Traits in Religions 
Revivals," by Frederick Morgan Davenport, 
p. 75. 



—132— 



CHAPTER XIII. 

From Darkness To Light — A Great Revival. 

It was in the study of the Bible that Barton W. 
Stone found relief from the mental perplexities 
which were narrated in the previous chapter. In 
his autobiography he says: 

From this state of perplexity I was relieved by the precious 
Word of God. From reading and meditating upon it, I became 
convinced that God did love the whole world, and that the 
reason why he did not save all, was because of their unbelief; 
and that the reason why they believed not, was not because God 
did not exert his physical, Almighty power in them to make 
them believe, but because they neglected and received not 
his testimony, given in the Word concerning his Son. "These 
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the 
Son of God, and that believing, ye might have life through his 

name" This glimpse of faith — of truth, was the first divine 

ray of light that ever led my distressed, perplexed mind from 
the labyrinth of Calvinism, and error, in which I had so long 
been bewildered. It was that which led me into rich pastures 
of gospel liberty. I now saw plainly that it was not against the 
God and Father of our I/ord Jesus Christ that I had been tempted 
to blaspheme, but against the character of a God not revealed in 
the Scriptures. 

It was a time of profound religious apathy 
when "not only the power of religion had dis- 

— 133— 



j 



The Story of a Century. 

appeared, but also the very form of it was waning 
fast away." About this time Mr. Stone heard of a 
remarkable religious excitement in the south of 
Kentucky and in Tennessee under the labors of 
James McGready and other Presbyterian ministers, 
and he decided to attend the meeting. 

The scene to me [he says] was new, and passing strange. It 
baffled description. Many, very many, fell down, as men slain 
in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently 
breathless and motionless state, sometimes for a few moments 
reviving and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan, 
or piercing shriek, or by a prayer for mercy most fervently 
uttered. After lying thus for hours they obtained deliverance 

With astonishment did I hear men, women and children, 

declaring the wonderful works of God, and the glorious myste- 
ries of the gospel. 

After remaining and witnessing such scenes for 
several days his conclusion was that while there was 
much fanaticism in the meeting there was also much 
good. 

That can not be a Satanic work which briugs men to an hum- 
ble confession and forsaking of sin, to solemn prayer, fervent 
praise and thanksgiving, and to sincere and affectionate exhorta- 
tion to sinners to repent and come to Jesus the Saviour. 

He returned to his appointment at Caneridge 
on Lord's day. Multitudes had assembled to hear 
the news from the meeting he had attended. He 
narrated the scenes he had witnessed, and preached 
a sermon on Christ's commission, urging the univer- 
sality of the gospel, and faith as the condition of sal- 

—134— 



The: Story of a Century. 

vation. "The congregation was affected with awful 
solemnity, and many returned home weeping." At 
night he preached at Concord, when two little girls 
"were struck down under the preaching of the 
Word, and in every respect were exercised as those 
were in the south of Kentucky ." In a few days 
he returned to Caneridge, where he found the effects 
of his last sermon manifest in the deep religious 
interest of the people. Among those who had found 
the Lord was one Nathaniel Rogers, a prominent 
man in the community, who, on seeing Mr. 
Stone enter the churchyard ran to meet him, shout- 
ing the praises of God, and they embraced each 
other. The people left the church building, and 
gathered around them and "in less than twenty 
minutes scores had fallen to the ground. Paleness, 
trembling and anxiety appeared in all — some at- 
tempted to fly from the scene panic-stricken, but 
they either fell or returned immediately to the 
crowd — as unable to get away. . . . The meet- 
ing continued on that spot in the open air till late at 
night, and many found peace in the Lord." 

"The effects of this meeting through the coun- 
try," says Mr. Stone, "were like fire in dry stubble 
driven by a strong wind." The meeting continued 
five days. All seemed to unite in the work. "Par- 
ty spirit, abashed, slunk away." Soon after this, 
Mr. Stone, having married meanwhile, returned 

—135— 



Thz Story of a Chxtury. 

to Caneridge to begin another meeting, "on Thurs- 
day or Friday before the third Lord's day in August, 
1 801 . • ' 

He writes: 

The roads were literally crowded with wagons, carriages, 

in, footmen, moving to the solemn camp. The sight was 

affecting. I: was judged by military men on the ground that 

there were between twenty collected. Four 

or five preachers were frequently speaking at the same time in 

different parts of the encampment without confusion. Methodist 

Baptist preachers aided in the work and all appeared 

y united in it — of one mind anil ad the salva- 

:: sinners seene I :e great object of all. 

This was the great Caneridge revival; a particular 
a of which, Mr. Stone says, * * would fill 
a volume, and then the half would not be told. 
The numbers converted will be known only in 
eternity." This meeting continued six or seven 
days and nights, and would have continued longer 
but provisions for such a large multitude failed 
in the neighborhood. The bodily agitations con- 
nected with this meeting are described at some 
length by Mr. Stone himself as the "falling ex- 
ercise, the jerks, the dancing exercise, the barking 
exercise, the laughing and singing exercise." It is dif- 
ficult to account for the: 2 ;■ :range manifestations, but 
we are concerned chiefly now with the effects 
of this revival. As: ith Mr. Stone were a 

number of other □ cs who were connected wi 

—136— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

the Presbyterian church, namely, Richard McNemar, 
John Thompson, John Dunlavy and Robert Marshall. 
David Purviance, who was a candidate for the 
ministry, was of the same faith. The doctrine 
which they preached at that time was "that God 
loved the world— the whole world, and sent his 
Son to save them, on condition that they believed in 
him; that the gospel was the means of salvation, but 
that this means would never be effectual to this end, 
until believed and obeyed by us; that God required 
us to believe in his Son, and had given us sufficient 
evidence in his Word to produce faith in us, if 
attended to by us. • . . We urged upon the sinner to 
believe now, and receive salvation; that in vain they 
look for the Spirit to be given them while they 
remained in unbelief; they must believe before 
the Spirit of salvation would be given them." This 
does not seem to us of to-day a very startling 
proclamation, but Mr. Stone says that "When 
we began first to preach these things, the people ap- 
peared to have just awakened from the sleep of ages; 
they seemed to see for the first time that they were 
responsible beings, and that a refusal to use the 
means appointed was a damning sin." 

Soon after the revival ceased, the spirit of opposi- 
tion broke out against these men, and Mr. Stone 
soon saw, as did the Campbells, that his separa- 
tion from his former ecclesiastical connection was 

—137— 



The; Story of a Century. 

necessary. He called his two congregations to- 
gether and told them he could no longer conscien- 
tiously preach to support the Presbyterian Church, 
and that his labors should <( henceforth be directed 
to advance the Redeemer's kingdom irrespective of 
party. " He absolved them from all financial ob- 
igation to him, and henceforth was a free man 
in Christ. For a while Mr. Stone and his fellow- 
laborers continued their work under the name of the 
"Springfield Presbytery." In about one year, how- 
ever, they became convinced that there was no 
authority for such an eccelsiastical organization, and 
wrote its "L,ast Will and Testament," consign- 
ing its body to death, together with its name and 
distinction, its power of making laws, etc. One 
item of the will was as follows: "We will that 
the people henceforth take the Bible as the only 
sure guide to heaven, and as many as are offended 
with other books, which stand in competition with 
it, may cast them into the fire if they choose, for it 
is better to enter into life having one book, than 
having many to be cast into hell." 

It is sad to add that of the six men who signed 
this document, two were carried away by the delu- 
sion of Shakerism, and two others subsequently 
returned to the Presbyterian fold. Mr. Stone 
continued faithful, however, passing through some 
mental tribulation on the subject of the atonement, 

—138— 



The: Story of a Century. 
until he reached what he regarded as a satisfactory 
view. The subject of baptism also now engaged 
his attention, and he adds that "some with himself 
began to conclude that it was ordained for the 
remission of sins, and ought to be administered 
in the name of Jesus to all believing penitents." In 
a great meeting at Concord, when mourners were 
invited every day to collect before the stand, and 
when brethren were praying daily for the same peo- 
ple, and none seemed to be comforted, "the words 
of Peter at Pentecost," he says, "rolled through my 
mind: 'Repent and be baptized for the remission of 
sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost.' " He arose and addressed these mourners 
in the language of Peter, and urged them to comply. 
"Into the spirit of the doctrine," he says, "I was 
never fully led, till it was revived by Brother 
Alexander Campbell, some years after." 



—139— 



CHAPTER XIV. 
Disciples and Christians Unite. 



Barton TV. Stone was criticised by some 
of his brethren for uniting with the move- 
ment of Mr. Campbell, and a modern his- 
torian has even denied that such a union 
vras ever formed!" In vindication of his 
course in seeking fellowship and co-opera- 
tion with Mr. Campbell he says: 

"But what else could we do, the Bible 
being our directory? Should we command 
them to leave their foundation on which 
we stood — the Bible alone — when they had 
come upon the same? By what authority 
should we command? Or should we have 
left this foundation to them, and have built 
another? Or should we have remained and 
fought with them for the sole possession? 
They held the name Christian- as sacred as 
we did, — they were equally averse from mak- 
ing opinions the test of fellowship — and 
equally solicitous for the salvation of souls. 
This union, irrespective of reproach, I view 
as the noblest act of my life. ? ^ — Autobi- 
ography, p. 79. 

* "Centennial of Religious Journalism," pp. 325, 
326. 



—142— 






CHAPTER XIV 

Disciples and Christians Unite. 

As Mr. Campbell had come in contact with the 
Baptists in Pennsylvania in the progress of his work, 
and had formed fraternal associations with them, so 
Mr. Stone in his work in Kentucky had a similar ex- 
perience with the people known as the " Separate 
Baptists.' ' At one of his appointments he found the 
" Separate Baptists" in their annual association, and 
they agreed to worship together. He baptized a Pres- 
byterian minister early in the meeting, which had 
the effect of bringing the Baptists into closer sym- 
pathy with him. He participated freely by invitation 
in their deliberations: He says: 

I exerted myself with meekness against sectarianism, formu- 
laries and creeds, and labored to establish the scriptural union of 

Christians and their scriptural name The result was, that 

they agreed to cast away their formularies and creeds, and take 
the Bible alone for their rule of faith and practice — to throw away 
their name Baptist, and take the name Christian— to bury their 
association and to become one with us in the great work of Chris- 
tian union. They then marched up in a band to tho stand, shout- 
ing the praise of God, and proclaiming aloud what they had done. 

—143— 



The Story of a Century. 

We met them, and embraced each other with Christian love, by 
which the union was cemented. I think the number of elders 
that united was about twelve, After this the work gloriously 
progressed, and multitudes were added to the Lord. 

It was about the year 1824 t^ at Mr. Campbell vis- 
ited Kentucky on a preaching tour, when he and 
Mr. Stone met for the first time. The following ac- 
count, from Mr. Stone's own pen, of his impression 
of Mr. Campbell, is of interest. In his autobiography 
he says: 

When Alexander Campbell, of Virginia, appeared, he caused a 
great excitement on the subject of religion in Kentucky and other 
states. "Some said* he is a good man, but other said, nay; for 
he deceiveth the people.' ' When he came into Kentucky, I heard 
him often in public and in private. I was pleased with his man- 
ner and matter. I saw no distinctive feature between the doc- 
trine he preached and that which we had preached for many years, 
except on baptism for remission of sins. Even this I had once 
received and taught, as before stated, but had strangely let it go 
from my mind, till Brother Campbell revived it afresh. I thought 
then that he was not sufficiently explicit on the influences of the 
Spirit, which led many honest Christians to think he denied 
them. Had he been as explicit then as since, many honest souls 
would have been still with us, and would have greatly aided the 
good cause. In a few things I dissented from him, but was 
agreed to disagree. 

I will not say there are no faults in Brother Campbell; but that 
there are fewer, perhaps, in him, than any man I know on earth; 
and over these few my love would throw a veil, and hide them 
from view forever. I am constrained and willingly constrained, to 
acknowledge him the greatest promoter of this reformation of any 
man living. The I^ord reward him!* 

* Autobiography, pp. 75-76. 

—144— 






The; Story of a Century. 

Referring again to the positions taken by Mr. Camp- 
bell, he comments as follows: 

These truths we had proclaimed and reiterated through the 
length and breadth of the land, from the press and from the pul- 
pit, many years before A. Campbell and his associates came upon 
the stage as aids of the good cause. Their aid gave a new im- 
petus to the Reformation which was in progress, especially 
among the Baptists in Kentucky; and the doctrine spread and 
greatly increased in the West. The only distinguishing doctrine 
between us and them was that they preached baptism for the re- 
mission of sins to believing penitents. This doctrine had not 
generally obtained amongst us, though some few had received it, 
and practiced accordingly. They insisted also upon weekly com- 
munion, which we had neglected. It was believed by many, and 
feared by us, that they were not sufficiently explicit on the influ- 
ences of the Spirit. Many unguarded things were spoken and 
written by them on this subject calculated to excite the suspi- 
cions and fears of the people, that no other influence was needed 
than that in the written word; therefore to pray to God for help 
was vain. The same thing had been objected to us long before, 
and with plausibility, too; for we also had been unguarded in our 
expressions. In private conversation with these brethren our 
fears were removed, for our views were one.* 

Among other Baptists in Kentucky who had receiv- 
ed the teaching of Mr. Campbell and had become 
zealous advocates of the Reformation, was John T. 
Johnson, a man of fine character and great ability as 
an evangelist in his day. He and Barton W. Stone 
lived together in Georgetown and worshiped together. 
These men became convinced that a union between 
the people known in Kentucky as Christians, under 

* Autobiography, p. 77. 

(10) —145— 



The S p a Century. 

the leadership of Mr. Stone, and those known as Re 
formers, or Disciples of Chris had accepted the 

teaching- oi Mr. Campbell, should be nnited. In 
reference to this union Mr. Stone writes: 

~r plainly ; we were on the same foundation, in the 

: spirit, anl preached the same gospel. We agreed to unite 
>ur energ i :e:~e^ oni iiurrrut s:<:ie:ies. 

This ily effected in Ken to confirm this 

:. we became co-editors of the Christian h gw« This 

bt, would have been as easily effected in 
other states is in Ken . been a few ignorant, 

heai_ more inrluen:ed to re- 

tain world by uniting 

according to the prayer of Jesus. Some irresponsible zealots 

^e Reformers, :> and zealously 

contend srs praying, 01 rofessors should pray 

for them — the be idea th mers should pray I 

God - u in declaring his truth to the people— they 

rejected from Chi t baptized for the re- 

mission of sins, imi who did not observe the weekly communion; 
aud many such s they preached. The old Ch 

: unacquainted wi:h :he p.': f information anion 

us,- Rurally conclc ^ to be doctrines of us all; and 

they rose up in opposition anting our religion as 

a spiritless. | Ligion 9 anddangerc -soulsofmen. 

They ran to extreme in Ohio, and in the eastern 

states. I , for opposing such doctrines, 

but I lo blame the m lligent among them, that they did 

not labor to. > of the people ingthem 

the truth, and not to them, as many of then did in their 

e preaching.* 

Mr. stone is right as to the reason why the union 

which prevailed in Kentucky was not carried out in 

*Antobiograp]iy, p. 78. 

—146— 



Ths Story of a Century. 

other states. He is right, too, regarding the extreme 
statements of some who were associated with the Dis- 
ciples, or Reformers, as they were then called in Ken- 
tucky, concerning prayer and the Holy Spirit. It 
would be difficult to exaggerate the harm that has 
come to our cause by the extreme position on these 
questions by a few men. His rebuke of the old Chris- 
tians for treating these extreme statements as if they 
were the utterances of representative men, is also well 
deserved. 

Such is Barton W. Stone's account of the union 
formed between the Christians and Disciples of Ken- 
tucky. For giving his influence in favor of this 
union he was severely criticized by his former breth- 
ren, who failed to come with him into the union. 
Referring to this he asks: 

But what else could we do, the Bible being our directory? 
Should we command them to leave their foundation on which 
we stood — - the Bible alone — when they had come upon the same? 
By what authority should we command? Or should we have left 
this foundation to them, and have built another? Or should we 
have remained, and fought with them for the sole possession? 
They held the name Christian as sacred as we did — they were 
equally averse from making opinions the test of fellowship — and 
equally solicitous for the salvation of souls. This union, irre- 
sptctive of reproach, I view as the noblest act of my life.* 

Doctrinally, the union did not influence greatly the 
movement of which it became a part, except, per- 

* Autobiography, p. 79. 

—147— 



The; Story of a Century. 

haps, to put additional emphasis upon the subject of 
prayer and the Holy Spirit, but it brought an acqui- 
sition of men who proved of great value to the cause 
of the Reformation, and a needed acquisition of evan- 
gelistic zeal. The chief difference between the two 
bodies in the beginning was the greater emphasis 
which Mr. Campbell placed upon the divine nature 
of Christ; but very soon Mr. Stone, and those who 
stood with him, came into substantial agreement with 
Mr. Campbell and his co-adjutors on this vital sub- 
ject. Other matters of difference adjusted themselves 
readily, proving the wisdom of those who advocated 
the union. The influence of such men as Samuel and 
John Rogers, J. A. Gano, T. M. Allen, Henry D. 
and Francis R. Palmer, in addition to B. W. Stone, 
himself, was a tremendous gain, and its effect was 
felt widely through Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and 
Missouri.* 

*It is a well known historic fact that the men who introduced the Reforma- 
tion into Missouri were Stoneites, who had learned the plea for union at the 
feet of Mr. Stone. The first congregations established in the territory of Mis- 
souri were of the same type. In about the year 1832, Mr. Campbell visited 
Missouri and made a triumphal tour through the state, being heard by large 
audiences wherever he preached. That visit had the effect of bringing the 
preachers and churches of Missouri more fully to the position advocated by 
Mr. Campbell aud later accepted by Mr. Stone himself. 



—148— 



CHAPTER XV. 
The Principles of Unity Vindicated. 



"It is this distinction "between sound- 
ness in faith — a genuinely Christian atti- 
tude of the soul to Christ, in virtue of which 
Christ determines the spiritual life through- 
out — and soundness in doctrine — the accept- 
ance of .some established intellectual con- 
struction of faith, on which emphasis needs 
to be laid. Soundness m faith is that on 
which Christianity and the Church depend 
for their very being ; but the construction of 
Christian doctrine is one of the tasks at 
which Christian intelligence must freely 
labor, respecting, no doubt, but never 
bound by, the efforts or attainments of the 
past. 

This, it may be said, is generally ad- 
mitted, and in one sense this is true. It is 
admitted by individuals * * * But 
though individual Christians, and not only 
these who listen to the gospel but those 
who preach it, are conscious of this distinc- 
tion and accept its consequences, the 
Churches can hardly be said to have done 
so. They are Christian organizations, yet 
they seem to be based on doctrinal state- 
ments which most of their members have 
realized are not the actual or the proper 
basis of Christian life; and they not only 
find it difficult to conceive any other basis, 
but seem to suspect those who speak of an- 
other of striking at the very heart of the 
faith. This want of accord between the 
intellectual attitude of the Churches acting 
collective] y, and that of their individual 
members, is the cause not only of discom- 
fort and misunderstanding within, but of 
much scandal and reproach without. It se- 
riously discredits the Church in the eyes 
of the world to which it wishes to appeal, 
and it is urgent to ask whether there is any 
remedy for it." — "Jesus and The Gospel/' 
by James Benny, D. D. 

—150— 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Principles ok Unity Vindicated. 

As has been seen from the foregoing, the union 
between Mr. Campbell and the churches of the 
Reformation with Mr. Stone and the churches 
organized under his leadership in Kentucky, was 
not based on perfect agreement in opinion on all 
points of theology. Mr. Campbell was concerned to 
know that Mr. Stone's views concerning Christ were 
essentially sound, and untainted with Unitarian 
speculations. When he became convinced of this, 
and saw that Mr. Stone was laboring for the same 
object as himself, namely, the union of all Christians 
through a return to simple New Testament Chris- 
tianity, he favored the union. On the other hand, 
when Mr. Stone saw that Mr. Campbell was plead- 
ing for the same great end for which he had been 
laboring, and had convinced himself that Mr. Camp- 
bell's views concerning the Holy Spirit and the 
place of prayer were essentially his own views, 
he became an ardent advocate of the union. The 
result was, as history shows, that the ministers 

—151— 



The Story of a Century. 

connected with these hitherto distinct movements 
were soon preaching precisely the same gospel, and 
even what superficial differences had existed in the 
beginning soon disappeared. 

These principles of union were very simple, 
namely, the surrender of party names and human 
creeds, so far as they were considered authoritative, 
or as bonds of union; the acceptance of the Bible as 
an all-sufficient rule of faith and practice; Jesus Christ 
as the Son of God — the only object of saving faith; 
and the restoration of the ordinances to their orig- 
inal form and significance. This would secure and 
maintain the seven elements of unity mentioned by 
Paul, namely. "One body" — the church of Christ; 
"one Spirit" — the Spirit of Christ, or the Holy Spir- 
it, to dwell in that body; "one hope" — the hope of 
being made like Christ, and of living with Him for- 
ever; "one Lord" — Jesus, the Christ, the only 
Saviour of sinners; "one faith" — faith in that one 
Lord; "one baptism" — which was into, and under 
the authority of, Jesus Christ; one God and Father 
of all — who is revealed by Jesus Christ. 

It will be seen from the above that the central 
truth in the whole plan of union, as well as in 
the scheme of redemption, is Jesus Christ. Faith 
in Him as the Divine Son of God was vital. Every- 
thing else follows from that. Hence, when Mr. 
Campbell received a proposition looking to union 

—152— 



The: Story of a Century. 

from some of the lt Christians" of the East who were 
Arian, and who were at the same time seeking union 
with the Unitarians, he rejected the proposition 
promptly. No compromise on this vital truth was 
to be thought of. No union that could be brought 
about on such a basis would meet the demands of 
Christ's prayer for the oneness of His followers. 
Mr. Campbell's own views on this subject grew in 
clearness and in strength with increasing study 
and experience. In his debate with Rev. L,. N. 
Rice, of the Presbyterian Church, in discussing the 
proposition on the subject of creeds, and defending 
his basis of union against the charge of latitu- 
dinarianism, he said: 

We long since learned the lesson that to draw a well defined 
boundary between faith and opinion, and, while we earnestly 
contend for the faith, to allow perfect freedom of opinion and of 
the expression of the opinion, is the true philosophy of church 
union and the sovereign antidote against heresy. Hence in our 
communion at this moment we have as strong Calvinists and as 
strong Arminians, I presume, as any in this house — certainly 
many that have been such. Yet we go hand in hand in one 
faith, one hope, and in all Christian union and co-operation in 
the great cause of personal sanctification and human redemp- 
tion. * * * 

It is not the object of our efforts to make men think alike on a 
thousand themes. Let them think as they like on any matters 
of human opinion and upon * 'doctrines of religion," provided only 
they hold the Head Christ and keep his commandments. I have 
learned not only the theory, but the fact, that if you want opiu- 
ionism to cease or subside, you most not call up and debate every 
thing that men think or say. You may debate anything intc 

— 153— 



The Story of a Century. 

consequence, or you may, by a dignified s: 7 e-i:e, wast e it into ::- 

on."— Debate, p. 797. 

We have italicized the foregoing sentence which 
deserves to be written in gold. Y\ T e doubt if Mr. 
Campbell ever said a wiser thing. Mr. Rice urged 
that this foundation was too broad and would lead to 
confusion. Mr. Campbell again replied: 

The gentleman complains that onr foundation is too broad; too 
liberal. It is indeed broad, liberal and strong. If it were not 
so, it would not be a Christian foandation. Christianity is a lib- 
eral institution. It ;vas conceive! in view of the ruin of 
the world. God looked upon not the thousand millions 
of one age, but the untold millions of all ages. And he looked 
a the inconceivable compassion of a divine Father, rich 
in mercy and plenteous iu redemption. * * * He bids all na- 
tions, languages and tribes of men a hearty welcome to the rich 
provisions of his bounteous table, made large enough and well 
supplied with the richest provisions of his un-vasting fullness. 
Surely, then, that ought to be a large house on a broad founda- 
tion that has in it a table for saved men from every nation under 
heaven. 

He has commanded a simple story to be told, leveled to the ap- 
prehension of all. It is expressed in plain, clear and forcible 
terms. The great cardinal principles upon which the kingdom 
rests are made intelligible to all, and every one who sincerely 
believes these and is baptized is, without any other instrument, 
creed, covenant or bond, entitled to the rank and immunities of 
the city of God, the spiritual Jerusalem, the residence of the 
great Iling. This is precisely our foundation. Strong or weak, 
broad or narrow, it is commensurate with the Christian charac- 
ter. It embraces all that believe in Jesus as the Christ, of 
all nations, sects and parties, and makes them all one in Christ 
Jesus.— Debate, p. 808. 



The: Story of a Century. 

With this clear and scriptural conception of unity, 
supplemented by an equally clear understanding of 
the principles of New Testament evangelism, and 
re-enforced and encouraged by the example of unity 
above stated, it is no wonder that the Reformation 
went forward now by leaps and bounds. Mr. Camp- 
bell had, as early as 1813, begun a monthly publica- 
tion known as the Christian Baptist, in which he 
struck herculean blows against existing abuses, and 
in some instances, it must be confessed, carried his 
warfare to an extreme, as he subsequently came to 
see. The criticism against the clergy and mission- 
ary organizations were, of course, not intended to be 
in opposition to the preaching of the gospel, nor to 
mission work at home or abroad, but were intended 
against abuses which no doubt existed. The dis- 
crimination, however, was not made with sufficient 
clearness, if, indeed, Mr. Campbell always drew this 
distinction clearly in his own mind. The dissolu- 
tion of the Mahoning Association, by Mr. Camp- 
bell's co-laborers, though we believe against the 
judgment of Mr. Campbell himself, and the some- 
what similar action of Mr. Stone and his co-workers 
in abandoning the Springfield Presbytery, as their 
co-operation of churches was called for a while, 
indicate a feeling of opposition against any formal 
system of co-operation at that time. It would have 
been wiser had these plans of co-operation been 

—155— 



The: Story of a Century. 

purged of any false methods or evil tendencies con- 
nected with them and the co-operative organizations 
continued. 

The Christia,7i Baptist, the name of which was a 
concession to Baptist sentiment, was changed to the 
Millennial Harbinger in 1830, of which he contin- 
ued the editor until 1863. He further added to his 
labors and to his methods of propagating the prin- 
ciples of the Reformation by founding Bethany Col- 
lege, whose charter was granted in the year 1840. 
Of this institution Mr. Campbell was president dur- 
ing his lifetime, and a large number of ministers 
who subsequently obtained a high reputation as 
ministers and teachers, and who became pillars of 
strength for the cause, were educated within its 
halls, and at the feet of its great president. Besides 
Mr. Campbell's labors as college president and as 
preacher and teacher, he conducted several public 
debates, on religious subjects, as with Walker in 
1820; McCalla in 1823; Owen in 1839; Bishop 
Purcell in 1837; N. Iy. Rice, 1843. It: was with no 
small reluctance that he adopted this method of 
defending the truth, but under the peculiar circum- 
stances he came to believe that it was not only jus- 
tifiable, but highly expedient. The custom, how- 
ever, was largely abused later on, and with men of 
smaller minds served to develop a party spirit and a 
pugilistic method which proved a hindrance rather 

—156— 



The Story of a Century. 

than a help to the cause. Its discontinuance is a 
mark of genuine progress for which we can not be 
too grateful. 



-157- 



CHAPTER XVI. 
Education and Organization. 



It was inevitable that the new life, grow- 
ing out of the new ideas, principles and 
methods of the reformation, should seek 
to express and to propagate itself in suit- 
able forms of organized and co-operative 
effort. What movement has ever perma- 
nently influenced the life of mankind with- 
out such organization? Hence the found- 
ing of colleges and the formation of mis- 
sionary oganizations were essential to the 
continuous life and growth of the move- 
ment. That these have come into existence 
as they were needed, and are prospering 
is the best proof the deepening and ex- 
panding life of the reformation. 



—160— 



CHAPTER XVI. 
Education and Organization. 

The founding of Bethany College by Alexander 
Campbell in the year 1841 served two important pur- 
poses: In the first place, a large number of men 
were trained for the ministry within its walls, who 
received the impress of Mr. Campbell's personality, 
and who subsequently became important factors in 
the development of the movement. To give a list of 
the names of such men, to say nothing of those train- 
ed for other walks of life, would indicate how greatly 
our cause is indebted to Bethany College for its work 
in the formative period of our movement. In the 
second place, the founding of Bethany College gave 
an impetus to religious education, and threw Mr. 
Campbell's influence on the side of an educated 
ministry. It is not surprising, therefore, that within 
two decades following the establishment of Bethany 
College, a large number of other institutions of learn- 
ing in different parts of the country were founded, 
some of them to fail for lack of support, others to be- 
come permanent factors in the educational life of the 
Preformation. 

—161— 



The Story of a Century. 

Bacon College had been established in Georgetown, 
Ky. , in 1838. Transylvania University, now located 
at Lexington, is its legitimate successor. The Bible 
College was organized as a later feature of the insti- 
tution. This university has exerted, and is still ex- 
erting, a wide influence, in the way of Christian edu- 
cation, and has contributed a large number of useful 
men to our ministry. The Western Reserve Eclec- 
tric institute at Hiram began its career in 1849, an ^ 
became Hiram College in 1867, and is reckoned among 
the most useful of our institutions of learning. About 
the same time Northwestern Christian University, 
now known as Butler College, had its inception, the 
charter being granted in 1850. It is loeated in In- 
dianapolis, and is now one of our best endowed and 
most efficient institutions of learning. Eureka Col- 
lege was founded in 1S55 at Eureka, 111., being the 
outgrowth of the Walnut Grove Academy, and is to- 
day prospering and doing an excellent work. Abing- 
dan College was founded about the same time, at 
Abingdon, 111., and after accomplishing great good 
as a separate institution, subsequently became united 
with Eureka College. Christian University, at Can- 
ton, Mo., was founded about this time, and though 
hampered, as most of our inststutions have been, for 
lack of proper endowment, has rendered, and is ren- 
dering, important service, especially in the way cf 
preparing young men for the ministry. Oskaloosa 

—162— 



The: Story of a Century. 

College, in Iowa, had its origin in the same decade, 
and, after filling a nsefnl place for a number of years, 
was merged into the wider educational foundation of 
Drake University at Des Moines, which has become 
one of our strongest educational centers. Cotner 
University, at Bethany, Neb., Texas Christian Uni- 
versity, at Waco, Oklahoma Christian University, at 
Enid, Milligan College in Milligan, Tenn., Virginia 
Christian College, at Lynchburg, Atlantic Christian 
College, Wilson, N. C, Washington Christian Col- 
lege, Washington D. C, and the School of Evangel- 
ists at Kimberlin Heights, Tenn., are newer institu- 
tions, which are showing signs of a vigorous life, and 
attest the wide-spread interest felt in the cause of 
education. 

In addition to these mixed schools there are a num- 
ber of female colleges, such as Christian College, Co- 
lumbia, Mo.; William Woods College, Fulton, Mo.; 
Cnristian Female College, Camden Point, Mo.; Ham- 
ilton College, Lexington, Ky., and Campbell-Hager- 
man College, in the same city. These are not all the 
organized institutions of learning among us by any 
means, but they serve to indicate the degree of inter- 
est felt in the cause of education. Aside from these 
separate institutions there have been organized in 
connection with onr state universities such institu- 
tions for Bible study as the Missouri Bible College, 
Columbia, Mo. ; the Berkeley Bible Seminary, Ber- 

— 10:5 — 



The: Story of a Century. 

keley, Cal.; the Eugene Divinity School, Eugene, 
Ore., besides Bible chairs maintained at Ann Arbor, 
Mich. ; Charlottesville, Va. ; Kansas University, Law- 
rence, Kan., and Texas University, Austin, in con- 
nection with the State Universities, under the aus- 
pices of our Christian Woman's Board of Missions. 
In addition to these there are several institutions for 
the education of the colored people, as the Southern 
Christian Institute at Edwards, Miss.; Christian Bible 
School, Louisville, and others at other places in the 
South. 

Many of our leading institutions of learning are 
now receiving additional endowment, and there is 
a general waking up among the Disciples to the ab- 
solute necessity of increasing the efficiency of these 
schools by increased endowment and equipment if 
they are to do adequately the work which we expect 
of them. There remains much yet to be done in this 
respect, but there is evidence of a new sense of re- 
sponsibility on the part of our men of means for the 
endowment of these institutions. 

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

Although the brethren in their new-born zeal had 
thought it necessary to dissolve the Mahoning Associ- 
ation, a little experience soon taught them the neces- 
sity of some general organization for the purpose of 
co-operation in Christian work. This question came 

—164— 



The Story of a Century. 

to the front in the fourth decade of the past century. 
It is interesting to note that Alexander Campbell be- 
came a leading advocate of such an organization. 

u To ask for a positive precept for everything in 
the details of duties growing out of the various exi- 
gencies of the Christian church and the world," he 
said, " would be quite as irrational and unscriptural as 
to ask for an immutable wardrobe or a uniform stand- 
ard of apparel for all persons and ages in the Christian 
church. . . . In all things pertaining to public in- 
terest, not of Christian faith, piety, or morality, the 
church of Jesus Christ in its aggregate character is 
left free and unshackled by any apostolic authority. 
This is the great point which I assert as of capital 
importance in any great conventional movement or co- 
operation in advancing the public interests of a com- 
mon salvation." This point is, indeed, of "capital 
importance," in any co-operative movement seeking 
to carry out Christ's purpose in the establishment of 
the church. 

It was the clear recognition of this point that en- 
abled the representatives of the movement to meet 
in Cincinnati in 1849, au d organize the American 
Christian Missionary Society. This event was the 
beginning of more systematic efforts at evangelization, 
and the extension of the cause. Since then there have 
grown up in the various states State Missionary So- 
cieties having for their purpose the co-operation of 

—165— 



The Story of a Century. 

the churches within these states in evangelistic work 
within their borders. In addition to these there came 
into existence in due course of time the Foreign Chris- 
tian Missionary Society, in 1S75, the Christian 
Woman's Board of Missions in 1874, whose names 
define their character and purpose. These have all 
become powerful and effective organizations, raising 
and expending large sums of money each year for the 
furtherance of the gospel at home and abroad. A later 
organization was the National Benevolent Association 
of the Christian Churches, which has for its purpose 
the caring for the homeless and fatherless children, and 
for the aged members of the church — a movement 
which has gone forward with rapid strides, until it 
has homes for orphans and for aged and infirm mem- 
bers of the church in various cities and states of the 
nation. A feature of our benevolent work also is the 
Board of Ministerial Relief, which has for its special 
object the care of the aged and dependent ministers 
of the gospel, and their families. 

These organizations have come into existence one 
by one as the need for them has been felt, and they 
have grown and prospered just to the extent that they 
have ministered to the welfare of the cause. Every- 
one of them marks progress, both in the wider and 
clearer apprehension of our duties and responsibilities, 
and in the knowledge of the most effective methods 
of meeting these responsibilities. It scarcely needs to 

—166— 



The Story of a Century. 

be said that none of these organizations possesses, or 
claims, any authority over the churches. On the 
contrary, they are the instruments of the churches for 
carrying out their desires and purposes in respect to 
education, missionary work, and benevolence. They 
are voluntary co-operations seeking to express that 
unity of faith and purpose which we have, and to 
more effectively accomplish, by united effort, our 
common ends and aims. 

It is a strange perversion of the principles of loyalty 
to the Scriptures as our rule of faith and practice, to 
oppose such methods of co-operation as those men- 
tioned above, because they are not specifically author- 
ized in the Word of God. Such confusion results from 
a failure to apprehend the distinction made by Mr. 
Campbell in the quotation we have above given. Such 
an interpretation of the Scriptures in relation to mis- 
sionary organizations would, if applied rigidly else- 
where, disorganize not only our co-operative efforts 
in mission work, but it would destroy our colleges, 
close all our Sunday-schools, stop all our printing 
presses, put an end to all our newspaper publications 
and bookmaking, and stop all progress, thus neces- 
sitating a dismal failure of the church in carrying out 
its sublime mission. And all this would be done in 
the name of loyalty to the Scriptures! This mistake 
can only be made by men who utterly fail to catch 
the free, life-giving spirit of Christianity, and are in 

—167— 



The: Story of a Century. 

bondage to the mere letter of Scripture. True loyal- 
ty to the Word of God does, indeed, forbid any organ- 
ization whose object and methods antagonize the 
principles of the gospel; but it none the less imposes 
the obligation to form such organizations, and adopt 
such methods, as experience and reason teach are best 
adapted to carrying out the great purposes and princi- 
ples of the gospel in their application to human 
needs. 



-16$— 



CHAPTER XVII. 
Rapid Numerical Increase. 



And Peter said unto them. Repent ye, 
and be baptized every one of you in the 
name of Jesus Christ unto the remission 
of sins; and ye shall receive the gift of 
the Holy Spirit.— Acts 2:3S. 

They then that received his word were 
baptized; and there were added unto them 
in that dav about three thousand souls. 
—Acts 2:4L 

But many of them that heard the word 
believed ; and the number of the men came 
to be about five thousand. Acts 4:4. 

And the multitude of them that believed 
were of one heart and one soul. — Acts 4:32. 

And Philip went down to the city of Sa- 
maria and proclaimed unto them the Christ. 
. . . TVhen they believed Philip preaching 
good tidings concerning the kingdom of 
God and the name of Jesus Christ, they 
were baptized, both men and women. — Acts 
8:5, 12. 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; for 
it is the power of God unto salvation to 
every one that believeth; to the Jew first, 
and also to the Greek. — Eom. 1:16. 

There is one body and one Spirit, even 
as ye are called in one hope of your call- 
ing: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
God and Father of all, who is over all, and 
through all, and in all. — Eph. 4:4-6. 



—170— 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Rapid Numerical Increase. 

In the incipient stage of the movement, while the 
Reformation was feeling its way to definite and as- 
sured grounds, the growth in numbers was very slow, 
for opposition was bitter and party spirit prevented 
an honest hearing. But when the movement had 
found itself, and had outlined a definite program, and 
had organized its forces, to some extent, for mission" 
ary work and education, the growth in numbers was 
very rapid. This feature has continued to be a char- 
acteristic of the Reformation throughout its history. 
This fact has often raised the question among our re- 
ligious neighbors as to the cause, or causes, which 
have contributed to this result. It may be well to 
set down here what seems a sufficient answer to this 
question from an internal point of view. 

In the first place, there is much in the plea which 
the Disciples have made that appeals both to the 
judgment and to the conscience of men. Some of 
the more prominent of these things are: (i) The 
plea for Christian union as against the divided state 
of Christendom, based on a return to New Testament 

—171— 



The Story of a Century. 

Christianity, involving the rejection of all human 
creeds as tests of fellowship, and the acceptance of 

the Bible alone as the rule of faith and practice; (2) 
The surrendering of party names for the scriptural 
names given to the followers of Christ and his church. 
(3) The restoration of the New Testament confession 
of faith, namely, the confession of faith in Jesus Christ 
as the Son of God, as the only confession of faith pre- 
requisite to baptism; (4) The restoration of the two 
ordinances — baptism and the Lord's Supper — to their 
original place and meaning; (5) The organization of 
churches after the New Testament model, with local 
bishops and deacons, each being independent in its 
local affairs, and all equal, fraternal, and co-operative 
in affairs of common interest; (6) The universality of 
the provisions of the gospel for all men, as against 
the hyper-Calvinism of that day, which excluded a 
portion of the human race from its benefits; (7) The 
ability of man to believe and obey the gospel without 
the aid of a miracle to enable him to do so, as against 
the doctrine of total hereditary depravity, which held 
that man was wholly passive in the matter of his sal- 
vation, and could not exercise faith until he was re- 
generated by the Holy Spirit; (8) The distinction 
between faith and opinions, in the former of which 
there must be unity, and in the latter, liberty; (9) 
The distinction between the old and new dispensa- 
tions — the law and the gospel; Moses and Christ; 

—172— 



The) Story of a Century. 

and the appeal to the latter as the supreme arbiter in 
all questions of faith and duty. 

No thoughtful person can examine carefully and 
without prejudice these positions without recognizing 
their strength and their adaptation to the intelligence 
and the plain, practical common sense of the common 
people. The plea for union, though unpopular at 
first, fell in with a growing tide of sentiment, which 
it helped to create, and found an answering response 
in the hearts of thousands, who have outgrown the 
limitations of mere denominationalism. The teach- 
ing concerning regeneration and conversion is vastly 
more in harmony with modern psychology and with 
the laws of human mind, as they are now understood, 
than was the old teaching, which was at war with 
reason and with Scripture. So that we should say 
the strength of the position itself is reason for the 
rapid growth of the movement. 

In the second place, however, the emphasis which 
has been laid upon evangelism has not only been a 
characteristic feature of the Reformation, but a chief 
cause of its rapid growth. But why should the Dis- 
ciples have given this emphasis to evangelism? 
Doubtless the very logic of the position they occupied 
required it, and there was something in the very na- 
ture of the doctrine held which impelled it. The ac- 
centuation of human responsibility in conversion 
logically implies the responsibility of the church to 

—173— 



The Story of a Century. 

preach the gospel to men, and urge its immediate ac- 
ceptance upon them. And then there is something in 
the possession of good news that impels one to desire 
to tell it. The Disciples held a view of the gospel 
and of the plan of human salvation that brought relief 
and joy to thousands of despondent and despairing 
souls, who were lost in the religious fog and mysti- 
cism created by the older theology, and it was an un- 
failing source of inspiration to those earlier preach- 
ers, and, in a measure, to all their successors up to 
the present time, to witness the glorious effects of 
their preaching in clearing away confusion, doubt and 
despair from the minds of honest seekers after truth, 
and in bringing joy and hope into their lives. In this 
fact we must find the explanation of why the earlier 
preachers in this movement traveled far and wide, 
without money and without price, preaching the Word 
and bringing thousands into the new-found light of 
the gospel. 

This evangelistic zeal did not cease with the ear- 
ly history of the movement. It has continued to this 
day. Indeed, never in the history of this Reforma- 
tion have there been so many large ingatherings into 
the churches under the labors of evangelists as at the 
present time. This fact in itself shows that the Dis- 
ciples have found a method of reaching the hearts, 
convincing the judgment, and persuading the will 
of men, which others have not. We may admit 

—174— 



The: Story of a Century. 

that this method has sometimes been abused; that 
too much emphasis has sometimes been placed upon 
mere numbers; that the outward has sometimes been 
stressed at the expense of the spiritual; but if so, these 
are faults of the evangelists, and not of the evangel- 
ism which our representative men, including our 
leading evangelists, would approve. The pugilistic 
type of evangelism which was more or less justified 
as a method of self-defense against the attacks of op- 
ponents in the past, has largely given way to more 
conciliatory methods, in which the gospel is preached 
with more affirmative power and plainness, but with 
less counter-attacks upon others who see it different- 
ly. This improvement in the spirit of our evangel- 
ism is one of the things which accounts for the in- 
creasing numbers that are being won by our evangel- 
ists. It gains a wider hearing and is far less offensive 
to intelligent and cultivated people. 

When all has been said that can justly be said in 
the way of criticism against some methods of some 
evangelists, it remains true that the secret of the 
successful evangelism of the Disciples is to be found 
iu their reliance upon the simple gospel of Jesus Christ 
as the power of God to produce faith, and secure sal- 
vation; their emphasis of human responsibility in 
yielding to the claims of this gospel, and the clear 
manner in which they are able to point out how the 
sinner, who is seeking salvation, may find Christ, 

—175— 



The: Story of a Century. 

who is seeking the sinner, and be able to rejoice in 
the knowledge of remission of sins through a hearty 
trust in Christ manifested in compliance with his 
requirements. 

But the Disciples have never depended solely upon 
special evangelism to win men to Christ. Every 
preacher and every pastor is an evangelist, and 
nearly every sermon ends with a pressing personal 
invitation to those present who have never yielded 
themselves to the Lord Jesus, to do so at once, so 
that many churches have conversions every Lord's 
day, and often even at prayer-meeting. 

If anything needs to be added, however, to the 
reasons we have given for our rapid growth in num- 
bers, it may be found in the fact that the Reforma- 
tion urged by the Disciples of Christ, having its origin, 
as well as its chief field of operations, in this country, 
has much of the same spirit of independence, of lib- 
erty, and of union which characterizes the American 
Republic. The movement has its declaration of in- 
dependence from human authority in religion, its 
plea for liberty of thought and freedom of action with- 
in proper limits, its independence of local churches, 
together with the union of all such churches in a 
common body, its accentuation of the individual 
rights of conscience, and exercise of private judg- 
ment, its plan of blending liberty and loyalty to 
gether so as to form the bond of union — all of which 

—176— 



The: Story of a Century. 

have their counterparts in our national life. This 
fact makes it an easy matter for any of our evangel- 
ists to go into a new and unoccupied field, and in a 
very short time to gather the people together who 
have been trainad in various forms of religious teach- 
ing, and unite them together in a common church, 
on a common basis of fellowship, in which there is 
unity of faith, and the fullest liberty of opinion in all 
matters not affecting the religious life and character. 
These considerations, we think, sufficiently account 
for the rapid growth of the movement in numbers, 
which makes it now rank the fifth among Protestant 
bodies in this country. 



—177— 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
Some Personal Factors In The Movement. 



"And what shall I more say? For the 
time will fail me to tell of all our Baraks, 
Samsons, Jepthas. Davids, Samuels. Debo- 
rahs, Sarahs, Marys, Marthas, Phoebes, 
Elizabeths, who through faith subdued king- 
doms, wrought righteousness, obtained prom- 
ises, stopped the moutlis of lions, quenched 
the power of fire, escaped the edge of the 
sword, from weakness were made strong, 
waxed mighty in war, turned to flight ar- 
mies of aliens. . . . Therefore, let us also, 
seeing we are compassed about with sc great 
a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight 
and the sin which doth so easily beset us, 
and let us run with patience the race that 
is set before us. looking unto Jesus, the 
author and perf ecter of our faith. ' ' — 
Adapted from Heb. 11:32-34; 12:1, 2. 



— ISO— 



W w^ 









D. Pat Henderson. 
Robert Graham. 
Moses E. Lard. 



L. L. Pinkerton. 
Robert Milli^an. 
L. B. Wilkes. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
Some Personal Factors in the Movement. 

Personality is , of course, the vital force in the car- 
rying out of any great enterprise. We have already 
mentioned some of the chief personal factors asso- 
ciated with the beginning of the movement. There 
is neither space, nor have we the data on hand, for 
any adequate treatment of the leading men who came 
after the first leaders, whose character and labors have 
done so much, under God, to shape the course of our 
religious movement. It has occurred to us, however, 
that even such a bird's-eye view of the reformation 
as we are attempting would not be complete with- 
out the briefest mention of some of the men, past 
and present, who have contributed, some in one way 
and some in another, to the success of the work we 
are seeking to accomplish. It will be impossible, of 
course, to mention all the names, even of the dead, 
whose work might well entitle them to favora- 
ble mention in a larger work. Any omissions of 
names which may occur to our readers can be 
accounted for by this fact. 

In both the second and third generations of 
—181— 



The Story of a Century. 

leaders, there occur such names as David S. Burnet, 
able and accomplished preacher; Iy. I*. Pinkerton, 
eloquent, poetic, pungent in pulpit and press; 
Benjamin Franklin, at once editor and evangelist, 
and a strong preacher of first principles; Isaac 
Krrett, equally distinguished both as editor and 
preacher, a princely man, of wide vision, of cath- 
olic spirit, and of superb ability, who, by pen and 
voice, helped mightily to bring the movement 
through one of the great crises of its history; O. A. 
Burgess, strong in the pulpit, resistless in logic, vic- 
torious in discussion with unbelief; W. K. Pendle- 
ton, an accomplished, scholarly teacher, writer and 
preacher, who, as fellow-laborer and fellow-helper of 
Alexander Campbell, both in Bethany College and 
in The Harbinger, rendered invaluable service to 
the cause; J. S. I^amar, beautiful in character, 
graceful as a writer, and strong as a preacher; 
Alexander Procter, who, with a philosophic mind 
and a poetic temperament that saw truth by intui- 
tion, must be ranked among the great preachers and 
fearless thinkers of the Reformation; he was as lova- 
ble in character as he was great in intellect; G. W. 
L,ongan, largely a self-made man, who achieved a 
most scholarly style as a writer, and who was also a 
distinguished preacher and thinker in his day; 
George Darsie, an almost ideal pastor and minister of 
the wordj who cherished a deep interest in all the 

—182— 




^ ■{* mm 







Benjamin Franklin. 

J. C. Reynolds. 

J. S. Lamar. 



Isaac Errett. 

W. K. Pendleton. 

B. W. Johnson. 



The; Story of a Century. 

enterprises of the brotherhood, and gave to them all 
the weight of his influence; L,. B. Wilkes, strong in 
argument, mighty in word and doctrine, and a stal- 
wart among stalwarts; John S. Sweeney, able 
preacher and incomparable debater and defender of 
the truth against its assailants; Dr. W. H. Hopson, 
a Christian gentleman and a peerless pulpit orator; 
Moses E. Lard, a gifted preacher and writer, un- 
excelled in imagination and descriptive power; D. 
Po Henderson, whose silvery voice and magnetic 
personality made him a power in the pulpit, and a 
man among men; J. C. Reynolds, who as preacher, 
college professor and editor was ever the true Chris- 
tian; Joseph King, whose heart burned with mis- 
sionary enthusiasm, and who was one of the first ad- 
vocates of foreign missionary work; Hugh Mc- 
Diarmid, able assistant of Isaac Errett in his ed- 
itorial work; the scholarly W. H. Woolery, and 
J. M. Trible, both of whom, as preachers, and as 
teachers, in Bethany College, made an indelible im- 
pression upon those with whom they came in con- 
tact; A. I. Hobbs, strong in pulpit and in Bible 
Chair, one of the manliest of men; A. M. 
Atkinson, preacher and business man in one, 
and founder of the Ministerial Relief fund, 
to which he gave the last years of his life in loving 
service; Timothy Coop, of England, a wealthy 

manufacturer and a consecrated Christian, who gave 

—183— 



The: Story of a Century. 

liberally of his means and his time for the interests 
of the kingdom; R. M. Bishop, who as President of 
the American Christian Missionary Society, Governor 
of Ohio, and a liberal supporter of all our missionary 
interests, won the love and confidence of all his breth- 
ren; Ovid Butler, philanthropist and founder of But- 
ler College; John Darst, if not the father of Eureka 
College, was its most liberal supporter for many 
years; F. M. Drake, General in our Civil War, Gov- 
ernor of Iowa, founder of Drake University, and lib- 
eral patron of every good work among us; James A. 
Garfield, President of Hiram, preacher, statesman, 
General in the United States army, President of the 
United States, and a Christian always. Jeremiah S« 
Black, distinguished jurist, Attorney-General of the 
United States and an ardent defender of the common 
faith; B. A. Hinsdale, one of the early presidents of 
Hiram College, scholar, teacher, and historian of his 
friend, Garfield, and of his country; Robert Graham, 
scholarly teacher, college president, graceful preacher 
and an ideal Christian gentleman; Robert Milligan^ 
saintly in character, scholarly in attainments, who as a 
college president and as author has left a holy impress 
on the movement; B. W. Johnson, able preacher, au- 
thor, editor and commentator; H. W. Everest, 
preacher of fine ability, college president and author. 
James Challen, consecrated Christian minister and 
writer; J. M. Mathes, preacher and editor t ever 

—184— 








ffe Us 



il 



R. M. Bishop. 

Jeremiah S. Black. 

Timothy Coop. 



Francis M. Drake. 

James A. Garfield. 

A.M. Atkinson. 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

loyal to the truth and to his Master; Elijah Goodwin, 
a minister of the grace of God, who won a worthy 
name among the brethren; John O'Kane, a pioneer 
preacher, prominent in the organization of our first 
missionary society, and in the establishment of 
Northwestern Christian University, now Butler 
College; Thomas Munnell, preacher and writer, 
excelling in the latter, but whose chief claim to the 
loving remembrance of his brethren is his long and 
patient service as Secretary of the American Chris- 
tian Missionary Society; Robert Moffett, strong 
preacher, able and efficient as Corresponding Secre- 
tary, first in Ohio then of the A. C. M. S.; W. W. 
and A. S. Hayden, who by song and sermon did 
much to extend the Gospel. George Plattenburg, 
strong in the pulpit, scholarly in his habits, and a 
fearless advocate of the Reformation. But time 
would fail me to tell of such heroes of the faith as John 
"Raccoon" Smith, John T. Johnson, T. M. Allen, 
John A. Gano, Samuel Rogers, Jacob Creath, Sr. and 
Junior, Henry Pitchard, D. R. Lucas, Jonas Hartzell, 
N. A. McConnell, Joel Haden, and a host of others 
whose names are written in heaven. 

"These all died in faith, not having re- 
ceived" the fulfillment of their desire and prayer 
for the unity of the people of God, but having seen 
and greeted it from afar. 

If we come down to the living men of the present 

—185— 






The Story of a Century. 

time, where shall the line be drawn? Perhaps the 
mention of a few of the older men, who have at- 
tained their three score years and ten, or there- 
abouts, and whose names have become more or less 
conspicuous because of their ability and valuable serv- 
ice to the cause, will not be regarded as discrim- 
inating among brethren. No one can think of the 
history of our cause as being complete, without the 
mention of the names of C. L. Loos, fellow-laborer 
with Alexander Campbell at Bethany, and later 
President of Kentucky University, and who only re- 
cently, at an advanced age, has been relieved of his 
duties as Professor in the same institution, has ren- 
dered distinguished service as teacher, college ad- 
ministrator, preacher of the gospel and writer for 
our periodical literature; J. W. McGarvey, President 
of the Bible College of Kentucky, now Transylvania, 
University, author of several books, editor, writer 
and preacher of the gospel, in all of which positions 
he has made an indelible impression upon the stu- 
dents he has taught and the cause he has loved and 
served with such distinguished ability; T. P. Haley, 
for a long period one of the most successful pastors 
among us, whose power as a preacher and strength 
as a thinker, seem to have increased with his age; 
A. B. Jones, who, though practically retired for 
several years, except for an occasional article in our 
periodical papers, must be classed as one of the 

—186— 




G. W. Longan. 

Alexander Procter. 

O. A. Burgess. 



Winthrop H. Hopson. 

A. I. Hobbs. 

H. W. Everest. 



The: Story of a Century. 

strongest preachers and thinkers of his time; Jo B. 
Briney, who, as a writer and minister, is reckoned 
rightly among the strong men of the Reformation; 
W. T, Moore, who well past his three score years 
and ten, is still strong and vigorous after more than 
a half century of distinguished service as minister, 
missionary in England, editor and author; D. R. 
Dungan, an able minister, debater, author and Bible 
teacher; L,. L,. Carpenter, who has dedicated more 
churches than any man of his time, and whose whole 
life has been fruitful in good works, and who refuses 
to be shelved because of his age. H. S. Earl, grad- 
uate of Bethany, evangelist in Australia and Eng- 
land for many years, where he won many to Christ; 
J W. Monser, preacher and writer and author of lit- 
erary merit; F. M. Green, preacher, writer and cor- 
responding secretary of the A. C. M. S., and faithful 
in all; Jabez Hall, scholarly minister, Bible teacher 
and trainer of young men; I. B c Grubbs, college pro- 
fessor, Bible teacher, and able writer and preacher, 
whose influence has helped to mould many young 
preachers; O. A. Bartholomew, faithful preacher and 
pastor in many leading churches, now lingering in 
the shadow of a serious affliction; W. W. Bowling, 
veteran Sunday School Editor and pioneer in Sun- 
day School literature, who for more than forty years 
has devoted his life to that work. Perhaps we ought 
to mention two of our white-haired young men who 

—187— 



The Story of a Century. 

have not attained the age-limit we have mentioned, 
but whose services to the cause, both as ministers 
and authors, have been valuable — F. D. Power and 
B. B. Tyler. 

But we pause. Our space is exhausted, and there 
arises before us a list of worthy names of men still 
living, who have rendered conspicuous service to the 
Reformation we plead, and whose names will be ad- 
equately mentioned by some historian of the future. 
We believe it is no partisan pride that leads us to 
the conviction that no religious movement, since the 
apostolic age, has developed, within the same length 
of time, so large a number of men of unusual power 
as preachers and writers, and who have devoted their 
talents with more unselfish service to the cause they 
love. It is in the nature of a great cause to breed 
and foster great men. 

Some of the men whose names I have mentioned 
would be called conservative in their views, and 
others liberal, but all of them, we believe, were and 
are loyal to the truth as they have been able to see 
it, and are equally entitled to the love and respect 
of their brethren. It is through the action and in- 
teraction of these two types of mind that truth makes 
progress in the world. If liberalism is essential to 
progress, conservatism is essential to insure that 
progress shall be safe and sane. Both these ele- 
ments have had, and will have, their work to do in 

—188— 



The: Story of a Century. 

the progress of this Reformation, and we must come 
to regard them, not as antagonistic forces, but as co- 
workers in the interest of truth. 

There is a mighty host of young men in our ranks 
to whom we are looking in hope and confidence that 
they will prove worthy successors of the great men 
whose names we have mentioned. That God may 
grant them an abundance of His grace and truth for 
their day and generation, is the earnest prayer of 
those of us who realize that the days of our active 
will soon be over. 



—189— 



CHAPTER XIX. 
Hindrences Without. 



■•A large majority : Christendom nn- 

aome form :z Bap- 
tismal Regeneration. , . . And yet it is not 
verv drffieul heresy had 

its Mrigin. Whc ; Fully the 

N w stament with i ying 

the relation between - and the sin- 

how 
intimate this i --.: n is. . . .By losing sight 
: t the propei nt : ' tism, viz. : 

faith and repentance, and by fixing atten- 
tion mainly uj>on the ordinances wh 
the eonsnmma onei *- return to 

difficult thing to reach the 
.r ope re 
ato, effected a change : heart 
change from the love of sin to the 
of holiiir— .. in other words, produced 
what is now regarded by evs 
Regeneration; and : .-.it can 

mple rea- 
son for regarding what ws 1 in this 

great transformation as a most pernicious 
i Fundamental Error of Chris- 
tendom," by W. T. Moore. LL, D. 



—192— 



CHAPTER XIX. 
Hindrances Without. 

In a preceding chapter we undertook to answer 
the question which has been raised from without as 
to the causes which have contributed most to the 
rapid numerical increase of the Reformation urged 
by the Disciples. Not less interesting, and perhaps 
more profitable for us to consider, is the question 
which we may well raise among ourselves — Why has 
not the movement achieved greater success, both in 
numbers and in influence, than it has within the cen- 
tury which has elapsed since its inauguration? No 
one, we believe, can study thoughtfully the princi- 
ples and objects of this Reformation and their adap- 
tation to the needs of the world, without feeling some 
explanation is due as to why such a plea has not by 
this time become thoroughly known, at least to the 
Christian world, and has not achieved even greater 
results in bringing about the union of God's people. 
To answer this question may be a less gracious task 
than the answer to the preceding question, but it is 
certainly not less important to the future success of 
the movement. 

(13) —193— 



The: Story of a Century. 

These hindrances may be classified as those with- 
out, and those within. We may treat some of the 
former class of hindrances under the title of hin- 
drances without 

I. BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. 

Every reformation in the history of the world has 
had to battle with misconceptions as one of the chief 
obstacles to its progress. Ours has been no excep- 
tion to that rule. One of the most persistent, as it is 
one of the most false, misconceptions of our position, 
is that we believe in baptismal regeneration. True, 
people who are ordinarily intelligent in religious mat- 
ters in this country, and who are not blinded by 
partisan feeling, know the falsity of such an accusa- 
tion. But there are enough people, unfortunately, who 
are willing to believe anything that is injurious con- 
cerning another religious body, to keep alive a mis- 
representation that would otherwise have died a natu- 
ral death long ago. 

It is sad to learn, too, that this false idea has been 
transported, along with other errors, into the foreign 
field. We are in receipt of a letter from Frank Gar- 
rett, of Nanking, China, under date of March 25, in 
which he says: 

I find that we are, as a people, much misunderstood in China 
and elsewhere. I have been surprised to find recently the extent 
of this popular misunderstanding. I have the privilege of com- 

-—194— 



The: Story of a Century. 

ing into contact with many leading men here from other missions. 
I find it a never-ending pleasure to present our position, and it is 
well accepted as a rule. But the open acknowledgment of what 
others say they have understood us to stand for is a cause of con- 
stant surprise. The statement which I enclose, clipped from the 
Year Book of the Baptists in Germany, shows what they think of 
us. I am hearing 'baptismal regeneration' everywhere I go. Of 
course, I disclaim any such teaching on the part of our people. 
But I too often get the reply that I do not understand what many 
of our preachers are teaching in America. 

The statement from the Baptist Year Book, which 
Mr. Garrett enclosed, is the following: 

In these numbers the Disciples of Christ in America are not 
counted. They practice immersion as we, but they teach that 
baptism is necessary for salvation, a doctrine which the Amer- 
ican Baptists, of course, reject. 

The word "necessary" is, of course, used here in 
the sense of essential; that is to say, there can be no 
salvation without baptism — a position which the Dis- 
ciples, equally with the Baptists, reject, for none of 
us doubts the salvation of infants, nor of believers in 
Christ who have had no opportunity of obeying Him 
in baptism. On the other hand, neither Baptists nor 
the Disciples of Christ will affirm the salvation of 
any man who, knowing baptism to be a command of 
Christ, and having opportunity to obey it, refuses to 
yield obedience. There is no doubt a difference in 
emphasis between the Baptists and Disciples on bap- 
tism in its relation to discipleship, and the assurance 
of forgiveness. The Disciples do emphasize the value 

—195— 



The Story of a Century. 

of Christian baptism as a divine ordinance, appointed 
by Jesus Christ, by which penitent believers may for- 
mally and publicly surrender themselves to the 
leadership of Christ, and enter into his church, where 
they may claim all the benefits and blessings which be- 
long to the members of that body. This, as every intel- 
ligent person knows, is directly antipodal to the doc- 
trine of baptismal regeneration, which teaches that 
this ordinance is the channel of grace by which re- 
generation, in the sense of the impartation of new 
life, is alone received. There are even some Protes- 
tant Christians who hold to that view of baptism, but 
the Disciples of Christ have always, through their 
representative preachers and teachers, rejected it. 
One of the most generally approved works among us is 
that by Dr. W. T. Moore, on "The Fundamental 
Error of Christendom, M which is devoted to the over- 
throw of baptismal regeneration. 

In some of Mr. Campbell's writings he used the 
word regeneration in the patristic sense, as synony- 
mous with baptism, since baptism was, in their con- 
ception the completion or formal consummation of the 
new birth. It was, in our judgment, an unfortunate 
use of the word, but Mr. Campbell never, for a mo- 
ment, conceived of baptism as the means of impart- 
ing the new life. It was the formal bringing of one 
who had been spiritually quickened through faith, 
into a new state or set of relations. 

—196— 



Ths Story of a Century. 

While some men among us have made extreme 
statements, no doubt, on the relation of baptism to 
salvation, there is not one of them that would not 
distinctly repudiate the doctrine of baptismal regen- 
eration. So far as we know, it has not a single 
advocate,- and never has had in our whole history. 
The time has come, however, when we can not be 
too guarded in our statements, so as to avoid this 
false imputation. Our praiseworthy effort to lift the 
ordinance of baptism out of the disrepute and neglect 
into which it had fallen, and give it the place which 
it held in New Testament evangelism, has subjected 
us to the misrepresentation referred to, but we can 
guard the sacredness and significance of the institu- 
tion without giving any justification for the suspicion 
of teaching baptismal regeneration. We could not 
hold consistently, as we do, that baptism is the sym- 
bolic representation of the sinner's death to sin, and 
his resurrection to newness of life, if we did not also 
hold, and teach, that a change of heart had previous- 
ly taken place, through faith and repentance, thus 
making possible the living of the new life which 
baptism symbolizes. 

We can not do better service to our Cause than to 
make it plain to all who wish to know the truth, 
that we have no sympathy with any theory that gives 
any magical charm to baptism, in itself considered, or 
that holds it to be an indispensable prerequisite, in 

—197— 



The Story of a Century. 

every case, to the reception of forgiveness and salva- 
tion; and that, on the other hand, we do not stand 
with those who wonld dishonor a divine institution 
by teaching men that it is purely optional with them 
whether they submit to it or not. Between these two 
extremes the Disciples of Christ claim to stand on 
solid New Testament ground. 

II. EXCUJSIVENESS. 

The impression has gained more or less prevalence 
that the people known as Disciples of Christ, or 
Christians, and whose churches are designated as 
Churches of Christ, or Christian Churches, are exclu- 
sive in their claims and pretensions; that they set 
forth the claim that they are the only Christians, and 
that their churches are the only churches of Christ. 
Of course, no student of the movement could arrive 
at such a conclusion, but popular impressions are 
seldom based on a careful study of history or of facts. 
The men who inaugurated this movement would have 
been the last men in the world to have made such ex- 
clusive claims. Theirs was an effort to restore the 
church to its original unity on its original basis of 
fellowship. This very aim excludes the idea of ex- 
clusiveness. It has been, and is, an inclusive rather 
than exclusive movement. 

The superficial ground for the impression referred 
to above is the use of the scriptural names for indivi- 

—198— 



The Story of a Century. 

dual Christians and for individual churches rather 
than party or denominational names. At the begin- 
ning of this movement it was held to be a thing 
without authority, as it was without precedent since 
apostolic days, for any persons to claim to be mem- 
bers of the Church of Christ without attaching them- 
selves to some one of the existing denominations. 
That any number of people could decline, on scrip- 
tural grounds, to wear any denominational name, or 
to subscribe to any denominational creed, and yet be 
evangelical Christians, and be organized into church- 
es of Christ, was supposed to be an impossible thing, 
and those who assumed such right were regarded as 
trespassers on the rights of denominationalism! 
People never stopped to think that any other policy 
by a people claiming to present a basis for Christian 
union, would have been absurd. Suppose, for in- 
stance, the advocates of this movement had chosen to 
designate themselves as "Catnpbellites," or "Camp- 
bellians," repeating the folly of those in the Corinth- 
ian church, who said, "I am of Paul.," or "I am of 
Apollos," or u I am of Cephas." Is it likely that men 
would have been easily persuaded to accept the name 
of Mr. Campbell rather than that of Luther, or Wes- 
ley, or Calvin, or any other party name? And yet 
tens of thousands have been willing to surrender their 
party names for the "name that is above every name, ' ' 
and which has the advantage of defining at once their 

—199— 



! h aud their religion, X: 
r.ulz supp.se that these nt: rlairuez :: be the ruly 

Phev ; ;.:ue: tod: 



:::er :: realize Christ's prayer frr unity. 

The si lies :u reference :: the re- 

jectiori :■: human creeps I: -ras e:i:len: that u: 



■ ■ - 






c:r.s:z:o: ~ uue :: ::esus :: Zsazzretz 

:z Scriptures, sue especially the 
Xe- rneut. as the rule :: .::: auz ;::; ::ice. 

The z: : ~zs :: c-t : u c::.u: ":r:zz 

. :: induce all Christians. 71:1: isu: ::::■ 
1: :: ::; : rather :: rathclicity 

11:: -e ~h : :1 istclic crrace :: i 

auth:: :e :ry :: tactual suc- 

cession subject to the charge :: exclusive- 

uess. hut u:t :h:se vrh: put t he m selves :r the broad 
: h'err Testament znrl 'invite rthers to meet 



~"± ~ill :: that there have been : rczsicnal 

c roppings of an exclnsi e spirit, here and there 

his::ry : — h: have :eeu 1 

— : — 



The: Story of a Century. 

breadth of vision, and in a proper appreciation of 
the catholic aim and spirit of our movement. It is 
denied, however, that the principles of the move- 
ment lend any support or sympathy to such a spirit. 
That there should have been opposition, on the part 
of a few of our papers and people to certain forms 
of co-operation with other Christian bodies, is a mat- 
ter of regret, as it has given the semblance of truth- 
fulness to the charge of exclusiveness. It is only 
justice, however, to say that so far as the people 
themselves are concerned this opposition has resulted 
from misinformation, zealously inculcated, as to what 
is involved in such co-operation. With a proper 
understanding of the subject all opposition of this 
kind is rapidly disappearing. Our position com- 
mits us irrevocably to the widest catholicity of spirit 
consistent with loyalty to Christ, and to all such co- 
operation as looks to the more rapid advancement of 
His kingdom. 



—201 — 



CHAPTER XX. 
Hindrances Without. — ( Continued, ) 



I would not. sir, value at the price of a 
single mill the religion of any man. as re- 
spects the grand affair of eternal life, 
whose religion is not begun, carried on and 
completed by the personal agency of the 
Holy Spirit. Nay, sir, I esteem it the pe- 
culiar excellence and glory of our relig- 
ion, that it is spiritual. 

— Alexander Campbell. 
www 
"While, then, I repudiate, with all my 
heart, the scholastic jargon of the Arian, 
Unitarian and Trinitarian hypotheses. I 
stand up before heaven and earth in de- 
fense of the sacred style — in the fair, full 
and perfect comprehension of all its words 
and sentences, according to the canons of 
a sound exegetical interpretation. 

— Alexander Campbell. 



-204 



CHAPTER XX. 
Hindrances Without. — ( Continued. ) 

III. U A MERE HEAD FAITH." 

One of the standing charges against the reformers, 
particularly in the early history of the movement, 
was that the faith which they required in order to 
baptism, was u a mere head faith;" an intellectual 
conception not involving the affections of the heart. 
This probably grew out of the efforts of the reform- 
ers to clear away some of the mystification which 
had accumulated about the subject of faith. The 
advocates of this reformation have always held that 
reason has its legitimate place in religion, and that 
it is not an absent factor in the matter of faith; that 
God does not require man, whom He has endowed with 
reason, to believe any proposition that is contrary to 
reason; that faith in Christ, just like belief or con- 
fidence in any other man, or in any proposition, is a 
matter of evidence. This was far from saying that 
faith does not involve the heart, for the very nature 
of Christian faith is such that it does involve man's 
whole spiritual nature — his intellect, his reason, his 
affections, his sensibilities, his will. 

—905— 



Tm; Story of a Century. 

It is easy to see, however, how this new view of 
faith would be regarded as making faith a matter 
wholly of intellect. The prevailing idea was that 
no man could believe, in the religious sense of the 
word, until he was regenerated by the direct action 
of the Holy Spirit. Faith, instead of being the 
means by which the regenerative power of the 
gospel is conveyed to the mind and heart, was 
regarded as the act of the soul after its regeneration. 
This view grew out of the doctrine of total hereditary 
depravity, which, as then held, regarded man as 
wholly unable to think a good thought, or to 
perform a good deed, or to do anything toward his 
own salvation. In that matter he was wholly 
passive. This view the Disciples of Christ, past 
and present, have antagonized, as contrary to the 
teaching of Christ and of his apostles, and as whol- 
ly injurious to the cause of Christianity. Human 
responsibility has always been accentuated in their 
teaching. The Gospel addresses itself to men as if 
they were capable of believing it, receiving it, and 
obeying it, and thereby enjoying it, and the respon- 
sibility for not doing so must not be laid upon God 
for withholding the enabling act of his omnipotence, 
but upon man who refuses to accept the divine tes- 
timony, and to yield obedience to the divine re- 
quirements. 

A counterchange of intellectualism might wel[ 

—206— 






The Story of a Century. 

have been made by the Disciples against their 
opponents who made the acceptance of human 
formulations of doctrine a test of fellowship, rather 
than a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ev- 
ery one now understands that the faith which saves 
and on which justification is predicated is not an in- 
tellectual assent to certain theological propositions, 
but the faith of the heart in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
which leads to a personal surrender to him and to 
newness of life. Every person who is baptized by 
the Disciples is required to confess that he believes 
in the Lord Jesns Christ with his " whole heart." 
This is in harmony with Paul's statement, that 
"with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, 
and with the mouth confession is made unto salva- 
tion." It is a little strange that the only people 
who have required this kind of confession in order to 
baptism, should be charged with holding to a "mere 
head faith." 

In addition to what has been stated above, it may 
be added that another reason why this conception 
prevailed, was that emotionalism held so large a 
place in the religious experiences of those days. 
Instead of the scriptural confession of the faith in 
the Lord Jesus as a condition of baptism, the can- 
didate of those times was expected to relate some 
marvelous psychological experience through which 
he had passed, frequently, if not always, including 

—207— 



The: Story of a Century. 

the hearing of miraculous voices or the seeing of 
miraculous sights. Some would tell of being lifted 
instantaneously from the depths of despair to the 
heights of holiest joy. One need not call in ques- 
tion the reality of these experiences to those who re- 
lated them, but to disregard them as necessary 
evidence of conversion or of preparation for baptism, 
was to antagonize the popular view, and thereby to 
incur the charge of intellectualism. We are coming 
to understand far more clearly than was understood 
a century ago, that all men do not pass through, and 
do not need to pass through, the same mental and 
psychical process in their conversion, and that it is 
not the process or method about which the Church 
should be concerned, but the end reached, namely: 
a condition where the believing and loving heart 
desires to accept the Lord Jesus, and to seek, with 
his aid, to live the Christian life. The faith that 
moves to this desire and action is the evangelical 
faith of the New Testament. 

To this position the Disciples have always held, 
and they hold it to-day. That is one reason why 
they discard human creeds as tests of fellowship, and 
adhere to the old-time confession of faith on which 
Jesus said he would build his Church. 

IV. CONCERNING JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

It is supposed by many good people that the 

—208— 



The Story of a Century. 

position of the Disciples on the subject of baptism 
in its relation to remission of sins is out of harmony 
with the New Testament doctrine of justification by 
faith as emphasized by I^uther in the Reformation of 
the sixteenth century. If these same good people, 
however, can harmonize Paul and Peter in Romans 
5:1 and Acts 2:38, not to mention other passages, 
they ought to have no difficulty in harmonizing our 
teaching on the subject of baptism with the Pauline 
doctrine of justification by faith, for the Disciples 
have no doctrine of their own on that subject, but 
simply aim to repeat the teaching of the New Tes- 
tament. 

What is the doctrine of justification by faith as 
taught by Paul in the first century, and re-empha- 
sized by IyUther in the sixteenth century? In Paul's 
teaching, especially in the Roman and Galatian let- 
ters, this doctrine stands over against Jewish legal- 
ism, or the idea of justification by works of the law. 
Paul seems to have sought justification by this 
method himself, first, and found it to be a failure. 
He clearly teaches, in opposition to this view, that 
salvation is by grace, and not by law, for "by the 
deeds of the law no man can be justified/' It 
would require perfect obedience to be justified by 
law, but since all have sinned it follows that no one 
can be justified by law. Justification by faith, then, 
in Paul's view, was justification through Christ, in 

(14) —209— 



The: Story of a Century. 

whom alone we have redemption, even the forgive- 
ness of our sins. The faith which justifies, accord- 
ing to Paul, is a living faith that commits the soul 
to Christ, for, after all, it is Christ that justifies and 
saves through faith, and it is only the faith that 
lays hold on him and biings the soul in right re- 
lations to him that can justify or save. 

Luther's doctrine of justification by faith, though 
he was tempted to carry it to an extreme, was set 
over against the Roman Catholic doctrine of works 
of merit. The view that the soul could accumulate, 
by works of supererogation, an extra supply of 
merit that could be applied to cover one's own short- 
comings, or those of another, was denounced by 
Luther as in violation of Paul's doctrine of justifica- 
tion by faith. Any doctrine that m^kes salvation 
anything less than a matter of unmerited favor on 
the part of God, is at war with the New Testament 
doctrine of salvation by grace, through faith. 

In what way does this doctrine contradict the 
position that it is a penitent and obedient faith that 
saves, and not a mere intellectual assent, or an emo- 
tion of the heart, disconnected with the soul's posi- 
tive acceptance of Christ? If we separate faith, re- 
pentance and baptism, as three separate and distinct 
acts, and think of repentance and baptism as some- 
thing quite independent of faith, we do not think in 
New Testament terms. Both repentance and bap- 

—210— 



The: Story of a Cdntury. 

tism are expressions of the soul's faith, and neither 
of them is possible in the New Testament sense 
without faith. True, there is a phase of repentance 
which precedes and prepares the way for a genuine 
faith, but there is a still deeper phase of repentance 
that springs from faith in Christ, and which leads to 
a changed life. Baptism is the divinely ordained 
means by which the believing, penitent soul casts 
itself on the mercy of God, seeking salvation by 
grace. In other words, it is faith^ appropriating 
salvation by grace, and not baptism meriting salva- 
tion by deeds of the law. 

Dr. James Denney, in his " Jesus and the Gos- 
pel," speaks of baptism as the act of men "when in 
penitent faith they cast themselves upon the Son of 
God uplifted on the cross. . . .In other words, when 
they commit themselves to the love which, in the 
Lamb of God, taketh away the sin of the world by 
becoming a propitation for it." (P. 88.) It empha- 
sizes the need of a thorough preparation of those 
who come to baptism, lest they come with the 
false view that there is any merit in the act itself, 
or any magical power in it, or any other view, ex- 
cept that in this solemn act of faith they are con- 
secrating themselves to the service of Christ, and 
claiming his promise of forgiveness and peace. 
Such a view of baptism is wholly consistent with 
Paul's doctrine of justification by faith. 

-—211— 



CHAPTER XXI. 
Hindrances Without. — ( Continued. ) 



"This, it would seem, is Christianity re- 
duced to its least common den .In 
other words, it is the 'irreducible minimum' 
^::"_<3ut which you can not have a church, 
or Christianity in any visible or practicable 
form. On this foundation of faith in Christ, 
and of loyal obedience to him. has been 
irch of the Lord Jesus, and on 
that foundation it to-day. There are 
a thousand things which may enter into 
the enrichment of Christian life when we 
have once built upon this foundation, but 
these things are not to be added to the 
foundation and made a part of the condi- 
tions of entrance upon the Christian life." 
— "L Ion: A Historical Study," 

▼ ▼ ▼ 

• ' If the Divine word be not the stand 
ard of a party, then are we not a party, 
for we have adopted no other. If to main- 
tain its alone-sufficiency be not a party 
principle, then we are not a party. If to 
justify this principle by our practice in 
making a rule of it, and of it alone, and 
not of our own opinions, nor of those of 
3T8, be not a party principle, then we 
are not a party. If to propose and prac- 
tice neither more nor less than it expressly 
reveals and enjoins be not a partial busi- 
ness, then we are not a party. These are 
the very sentiments we have approved and 
recommended, as a St - i the 

express purpose of promoting Christian 
unity in opposition to a party spirit. ' ' — 

"Declaration and Address/' by Thomas 

Campbell, 



—214— 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Hindrances Without. — ( Continued. ) 

V. CONCERNING CHRISTIAN UNION. 

As Christian union has been an important item in 
the contention of the Disciples from the beginning, 
it has been an occasion of stumbling to many, 
whose objections to it indicate the nature of the 
misconceptions as to what it is. 

I . u You can not make everybody think alike. ' ' 
This has been a standing objection of many who 
have supposed that Christian union means uniform- 
ity of thought. The proposition is self-evidently 
true, but it does not bear against Christian union. 
The variety in nature is often referred to as illustra- 
ting the truth that God likes variety better than 
sameness. True again, but entirely without force as 
an objection to Christian union. Indeed, it is an 
argument in favor of such unity, for if the unity of 
nature is not disturbed, but manifested by its varie- 
ty, why should it be thought incredible that the 
church can be one with variety of opinions and meth- 
ods among its members. 

—215— 



The: Story of a Century. 

Sects have been formed and justified on the prin- 
ciple that those within the same fellowship must 
think alike on all theological and ecclesiastical ques- 
tions. Then when these divisions are formed in the 
church, the union of Christians is opposed on the 
ground that variety is the very spice of life, and that 
even nature teaches us how unity is consistent with 
the greatest variety! Very true; but why, then, 
was the unity of the Church broken, its bonds of fel- 
lowship severed, because of these differences of opin- 
ion? In other words, why should not the principle 
of unity in variety be applied against creating divis- 
ions rather than against healing such divisions? 

Intelligent Christians now have generally come to 
see that the unity for which Jesus prayed is not 
unity of opinions or of methods, but of faith and 
spirit. To believe in the one Lord, and to make 
obedience to him the only test of fellowship, is con- 
sistent with the largest liberty of opinions in all mat- 
ters not affecting one's faith and character, and in 
all methods of work not antagonistic to the moral 
principles of the gospel. No one who has the mind 
of Christ on this subject ever expects or desires to see 
any ecclesiastical organization that would require 
uniformity of opinion as a condition of fellowship. 

2 . "I am opposed to uniting all Christians in one 
great ecclesiastical organization, like the Roman 
Catholic Church, with the religious despotism which 

—216— 



The: Story of a Century. 

it would be sure to exercise over the local congregation 
or the individual Christian ." 

Many a man has uttered this statement under the 
supposition that he was opposing the kind of union 
we are advocating. But of all people in the world 
the Disciples are least inclined to put themselves in 
ecclesiastical bondage. No, the union they favor is 
a union of free, independent, co-operating local 
churches, having "one Lord, one faith and one bap- 
tism, " and working together to advance the king- 
dom of God. Whatever organization other than the 
local self-governing church may exist, must be pure- 
ly voluntary, and exercise no authority whatever 
over such local churches. Their recommendations 
must be only advisory, not compulsory, beyond the 
compulsion of reason and fraternity. 

To what extent, it may be asked, will this sort of 
unity permit such organizations as the present existing 
denominations for carrying on Christian work ? Only 
so far as such organizations do not interfere with the 
fellowship and unity of the body of Christ, nor with 
that free co-operation in the work of Christ to which 
his prayer for unity looks. This, it seems to us, in- 
volves the practical reconstruction of Protestanism, 
but such changes will come gradually, by the action 
of the various bodies themselves, as they come into 
fuller union with Christ, and are more and more itn- 

—217— 



The; Story of a Century. 

bued with his spirit of humility, and his passion for 
the salvation of men. 

We need not concern ourselves unduly as to what 
form Christian union will ultimately take. We may 
leave that to the great Head of the Church to decide 
what form His body is to have, while we concern 
ourselves chiefly with following His word and 
Spirit. 

3. " You want everybody to come to you " On 
the contrary, we neither want nor expect everybody 
to come to us. If we were already perfect, both in 
knowledge and practice, we would not invite every- 
body to come*to us. But, like Paul, we are com- 
pelled to say: "We are not perfect; we have not yet 
apprehended that for which we have been apprehend- 
ed by Christ Jesus. M What we do wish concerning 
all our brethren of every name and creed is that they 
and we may get into closer fellowship with Christ — 
with his purposes and plans. He is the goal toward 
which all must steer their course. Any union that 
answers his prayer and is to meet with his approval, 
must be in him. 

This fact has not been sufficiently appreciated. 
Any agreement among ourselves on a platform of our 
own making would not be Christian union. It is 
this fact that has led the Disciples to emphasize the 
necessity of returning to the original basis of union 
and to its high ideals of Christian life. This we 

—218— 



The: Story of a Century. 

have sought to do ourselves, and yet how imper- 
fectly we have done so in actual practice, no one can 
realize more keenly than we ourselves. But, like 
Paul again, " we press on toward the mark for the 
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. " 
We believe we have made some progress, and in so 
far as we have already attained, we expect our breth- 
ren to walk by the same rule. 

The old theory of Christian union by the absorp- 
tion of all other religious bodies by one single body 
is utterly abandoned by most Protestant Christians. 
Here and there may be heard a belated voice, say- 
ing, "The way to have Christian union is for all the 
rest of you to join us." But intelligent Christians 
no longer expect or desire to see union come about 
in that way. As a substitute for that impractica- 
ble dream is the gradual approximation of all 
Christian bodies to the mind of Christ as 
revealed in the New Testament, "until we all come 
to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of 
the Son of God." That process is going on before 
us, if we have eyes to see. Many of us have had a 
different view as to how union will come, but God 
is showing us "a more excellent way," and we are 
coming to his way. 

The plan of our Episcopal brethren to bring us all 
into one fold by our recognition of "the historic 
episcopate," is a vain delusion, however worthy the 

—219— 



The Story of a Century. 

desire which prompts it. Unity which is in out- 
ward form, or which consists in the acknowledg- 
ment of the same theory of church government, is 
not the unity for which Jesus prayed,, which is 
inward, spiritual and vital. But while this union is 
inward and vital, it is bound to manifest- itself in 
such conformity to the divine will, in all matters of 
faith and practice, as will manifest the unity of be- 
lievers to the world. It does not, however, involve 
uniformity in thought, or in methods of organiza- 
tion and government. 

This does not mean that we are to be indifferent 
to what God requires us to believe and do. Nor 
does it mean that we are to regard "one church as 
good as another." It means simply that we all 
recognize our limitations and seek steadfastly to 
know our Master's will and do it — each being loyal 
to his own convictions of truth, and encouraging 
others to do the same. But how can we ever unite 
if each is loyal to his own convictions? By God 
sending the conviction of essential truth into all 
honest souls seeking the truth, and by making it 
plain to us that we are to receive each other without 
regard to differences of opinion concerning matters 
not vital to faith. This process of growth is now 
going steadily on, and as a result of it we are hav- 
ing more practical Christian union to-day than 
Protestants have ever known. 

—220— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

No, it is not by one religious body coming to 
another, however correct that other body may be in 
its position, but by all coming closer to Christ and 
into more vital union with him, that his prayer for 
the oneness of his followers is to be fulfilled— u even 
as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that 
they may be one in us, that the world may be- 
lieve. " 



—221- 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Hindrances Within. 



"God did not reveal himself to man 'in 
many parts and in many ways/ just be- 
cause be was sovereign, and chose to do 
so, but because in man's nature there was 
a necessity which demand it, and to which 
God's method was adjusted with careful 
adaptation and infinite skill. " — G. W. 
Long an, Christian Quarterly, Vol. VI., 1874. 
▼ ▼ ▼ 

As in revelation, so has it been in the 
deepening apprehension of the revelation 
by the church. "First the blade, then the 
ear, then the full corn in the ear," is the 
law of progress in the kingdom, 



-224— 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Hindrances Within. 

After all, however, the chief obstacles to the prog- 
ress of any movement are not misconceptions and 
misrepresentations of those without, but the errors in 
judgment and practice of those within the move- 
ment. 

In mentioning some ot these hindering causes 
within we would not create the impression that this 
is an unusual experience with religious movements 
or reformations of any kind. It was true of Chris- 
tianity itself. Indeed, no cause is so liable to be 
misapprehended and misrepresented by its friends as 
one having the highest ideals and aims and the purest 
principles. True and important as are the principles 
of the Reformation which we plead, they have been 
entrusted to "earthen vessels," and their advocacy 
and defence have been in the hands of men "of like 
passions, n and like limitations as other men. Re- 
formations within the church, like the gospel net 
itself, gather in all kinds of men, both good and bad, 
and the various types and degrees of intelligence and 

(15) —225— 



The Story of a Century. 
culture* That some of these would misconceive the 
spirit and principles of the movement was inevitable; 
that now and then there should arise men who would 
seek on some pretense or other to draw away follow- 
ers after themselves was to have been expected from 
the whole history of Christianity. These facts, how- 
ever, constitute no valid plea against Christianity or 
against the reformations within the church which they 
have sought to purify; they simply indicate the weak- 
ness and perversity of our poor human nature. 

I. LOPSIDENKSS. 

One of the great dangers which beset all reformers 
and reformations, is the tendency to become hobby- 
ists; that is, to emphasize certain truths at the 
expense of others. It is a well-known law of the 
human mind that it tends to magnify unduly anything 
on which it exclusively dwells. For this reason re- 
formers in calling attention to neglected truths and 
doctrines are liable to overstress them to the neglect 
of the great fundamental truths which they hold in 
common with others. That this mistake has been 
made by many of the advocates of the current reform- 
ation can hardly be denied by any candid student of 
our history. The Bible of every hobbyist is thum- 
worn at certain proof texts, while the remainder is 
practically unused. The lopsidedness of this sort of 
teaching and preaching becomes apparent, sooner or 

—226— 



The: Story of a Century. 

later, and honest and capable men seek to correct the 
error and to present the truth in its true proportions 
and to preach a full-orbed gospel. This process of 
self-correction has been going on among the Disciples 
for a generation or more, but we are still suffering in 
reputation from impressions made by an earlier 
phase of the movement. 

II. ABUSE OF OUR MOTTO. 

We have already reverted, in an earlier chapter, 
to the saying of Thomas Campbell — " Where the 
Scriptures speak we speak; where the Scriptures are 
silent we are silent" — as having been misconceived 
and abused by men of another generation. Used in 
the sense in which its author intended it, it was a 
potent instrument of religious reform. It meant loy- 
alty to everything which Christ has required of us, 
and freedom from every human yoke which men 
would place upon their fellows. In other words, it 
meant submission to divine authority, and freedom 
from mere human authority. The abuse of it by 
opponents of missionary societies, instrumental 
music in the worship, and other expedients not spe- 
cifically authorized in the Scriptures, has been a 
hindrance to the progress of the Reformation. Just 
as the spirit of legalism threatened to strangle Chris- 
tianity in its very cradle, so it made a determined 
assault upon the Reformation as interpreted by its 

—227— 



The; Story of a Century. 

more liberal defenders. How far human ambition 
has linked itself with this misconception of our posi- 
tion, to accomplish its purpose by inciting division, 
it is difficult to say, but it is charitable to suppose 
that there has been an honest misinterpretation of 
that fundamental principle of the movement, which 
makes the Holy Scriptures its inspired rule of faith 
and practice. This error possesses the virtue at least 
of being self-destructive, since it can not propagate 
itself without violating its own principle. 

III. RELATIONSHIP TO OTHKR CHRISTIANS. 

We suppose every religious movement in Christen- 
dom has had connected with it at least some men 
who have regarded such movement as constituting, 
if not the whole church, at least the one "true 
church." Some have gone so far as to doubt the sal- 
vation of any one disconnected with their own com- 
munion. Narrowness of vision, or what we may call 
the sectarian spirit, has cursed and hampered every re- 
ligious movement within the church, no matter how 
broad and generous its original aims may have been. 
Our own movement has been no exception to the rule. 
In Mr. Campbell's own day he had his critics who 
charged him with too great liberality as regards other 
religious people, and who felt that he was compro- 
mising the plea he was making by admitting the 
Christian character of those not connected with his 

—228— 



The: Story of a Century. 

movement. To one of these critics he replied as 
follows: 

But who is a Christian? I answer, every one that believes in 
his heart that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God; 
repents of his sins and obeys him in all things according to his 
measure of knowledge of his will. 

I can not, therefore, make any one duty the standard of Chris 
tian state or character, not even immersion into the name of the 
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and in my heart re- 
gard all that have been sprinkled in infancy without their own 
knowledge and consent as aliens of Christ and the well-grounded 
hope of heaven.— (Mill, Harbinger, Vol. for 1737, p. 411.) 

Mr. Campbell did not regard the truths stated in 
the foregoing extract, and often expressed by him in 
other terms, as reasons for departing from what he 
believed to be the New Testament conditions of 
church membership, which, he says u after a long and 
close deliberation" he believed to be "an usurpation 
of the legislative authority vested in the holy apos- 
tles, and of dangerous tendency in the administration 
of the Reign of Heaven. n It did, however, furnish 
ground for regarding his religious neighbors with 
charity and brotherly esteem, and of co-operating 
with them in every good word and work, where it 
was possible to do so without compromising any 
truth or principle. In his great heart there was room 
for a generous appreciation of all that was true and 
Christlike in other religious bodies. 

There have always been those associated with the 
religious movement of the Disciples who have not 

—229— 






shared Mr. Campbell's large: 
? e r b a r s n c single r u e s 1 1 r n b a 



: .::::: :: s:m 






: ::: : :: 



:: :. nave :r:re 



;he:r prints c: vie" 
uli : :• : oera:e as far ; 



i :: 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Hindrances Within. — {Continued.} 



"I said at the beginning, I say at the 
close, of my notice of the Evangelical Al- 
liance, that I thank God and take courage 
at every effort, however imperfect it may 
be, to open the eyes of the community to the 
impotency and wickedness of schism, and 
to impress upon the conscientious and be- 
nevolent portion of the Christian profession 
the excellency, the beauty and the neces- 
sity of co-operation in the cause of Christ 
as pre-requisite to the diffusion of Chris- 
tianity throughout the nations of the earth. 

"The Eeformation for which we plead 
grew out of a conviction of the enormous 
evils of schism and partyism, and the first 
article ever printed by any of the co-oper- 
ants in the present effort was upon the sub- 
ject of the necessity, practicability and ex- 
cellency of Christian union and communion, 
in order to the purification and extension 
of the Christian prof ession. ' 9 — Alexander 
Campbell, 



-232- 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
Hindrances Within. — {Continued.) 

IV. AN ILLUMINATING CHAPTER. 

The discussion among the Disciples in recent 
years on the subject of federation furnishes an illu- 
minating chapter on the process of getting out of the 
narrow provincialism, into which many had uncon- 
sciously fallen, into the wider vision of their rela- 
tionship to other Christians, and of their respon- 
sibility, as a Christian union movement, in helping 
bring to some practical realization that earnest de- 
sire for Christian union and fellowship which 
is so marked a feature of our time. There 
has been no desire or purpose on the part of the 
advocates of the plan of co-operation known as 

federation to compromise any principle of the Re- 
formation. On the contrary, it is their deep convic- 
tion that our failure to enter in heartily with such a 
co-operative movement would be the practical re- 
pudiation of the chief thing for which we are con- 
tending. It is not surprising, therefore, that most 
of the leaders of the movement and the great body 

—233— 



The Story of a Century. 

of the membership, have hailed with joy this ad- 
vance step on the part of Evangelical Protestants 
toward the realization of Christ's prayer for unity. 
Indeed, what opposition there has been to the move- 
ment, in so far as it has been sincere, has grown out 
of a misapprehension of its spirit and aim. This 
spirit is so consonant with the spirit which animated 
the leaders cf this Reformation in the beginning-, 
that to understand it is to be in sympathy with it. 
It is highly probable that in working out this prob- 
lem some mistakes will be made which will require 
correction, for we are entering upon new ground and 
must learn by experience. It is quire sure, how- 
ever, that the church, so far as as Protestantism is 
concerned, has opened a new chapter in its history 
and has entered upon a new era of progress, looking 
toward the unification of its divided forces. What- 
ever changes may be made in the methods of co-op- 
eration proposed, one thing is certain, and that is 
that these great Protestant evangelical bodies will 
never return to that state of mutual hostility out of 
which they have grown, but will continue to seek 
the fuller realization of Christ's prayer for unity. 

V. A SEVERE TEST. 

One of the most fundamental principles of the 
Reformation — the distinction between faith and 
opinion, with unity in the former and liberty in the 

~er — has been the hardest one to live up to. Men 
—234— 



Ths Story of a Century. 

love their opinions tenaciously, and the temptation 
is often strong to make other people think as we do 
on pain of incurring our disfellowship. The rise 
in modern times of the historical criticism of the 
Bible has made a severe test in all religious bodies 
of the principle of Christian liberty, and among the 
"Disciples it has furnished, perhaps, the severest test 
which has so far arisen to its basic principle of unity 
already stated. That such historical investigation 
of the Bible should come, was, of course, inevitable, 
and that its outcome will be to the great advantage 
of Christianity, few robust believers in the Bible 
doubt. Like all new movements, however, this 
critical movement has been misjudged and misun- 
derstood. The very word criticism has conveyed to 
many honest minds the idea of fault-finding, and 
critics were supposed to be a class of people who 
took delight in finding fault with the Bible and 
pointing out its imperfections! Moreover, it must 
be admitted that some of the critics and their crit- 
icisms have served to confirm this superficial view of 
criticism. It can readily be understood that a 
people who stand so thoroughly committed to the 
authority of the Scriptures as the Disciples of Christ 
would not regard lightly any movement whose object 
and effect were thought to undermine the Bible. 
This much at least is to their credit. But, admit- 
ting the legitimacy of the historical and literary 

—-235— 



The; Story :j a Century. 

criticism of the Bible, as all thinking people now do 
the question still arises as to how far men may go, 
within the limits of Christian liberty, in accept: 
conclusions concerning the Bible which have i 
hitherto been received. Th: bed 

every religious body in Christendom. It has led to 
heresy trials, to the dismissal of college professors, 
and to a vast amount of heated in the 

religious periodicals of the v: xxlies. 

This question would seem to be ea iswered 

applying to it our accepted pri : of requiring 

unity in faith, and " in matters of opinions 

There is, as vre all know, a >nalistic or 

destructive cr: :h the pres' 

position that every miraculous event recorded in the 
Bible is unhistorical, because miracles Jo not occur, 
and that every re: : of Jesi 

or concerning Jesus, by his apostles, that would 
assign him a unique place among the child] 
of men, such as "the a Son of 

God," and the Saviour of the vrorld is un- 
trustworthy, because such a charactei there 
lid not have been in the natural order of history, 
and the natural order of history is the only order 
which these critics admit to be possible. The 
trouble with these men is not primarily their crit- 
icism, but their lack of faith. Moralists they may 
be, but Christians in any New Testament sense they 



The: Story of a Cf,ntury. 

can not be, for they do not believe in Christ, as the 
apostles and the first Christians believed in Him, 
nor do they accept Christ's own view of His person 
and mission. Their radical conclusions, which are 
at war with all Christian history, are not to be con- 
founded with legitimate Biblical criticism. 

There is another class of critics, who are profound 
believers in the unique character of the Biblical 
literature, and in the divine character of Jesus Christ 
who is revealed therein. They differ among them- 
selves on certain historical questions concerning the 
dates and authorship of books, but they hold in com- 
mon the I^ordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of 
the sacred writings. It ought not to be difficult for 
a religious movement like that advocated by the Dis- 
ciples to admit fullest liberty in Biblical criticism 
within the limits just mentioned. It is perfectly 
legitimate, of course, for any Disciple to question the 
correctness of any conclusion touching the date 
or nature, or authorship of any of the books of 
the Bible, but to make such opinions and conclu- 
sions a bar to fellowship, is clearly to depart from 
the basis of unity which we have proposed. Of 
course it may be said, and often is said, that if a 
certain conclusion concerning an Old Testament 
book be accepted, it antagonizes what Christ has 
said in the New Testament, and is, therefore, 
disloyalty to him. So long, however, as those hold- 

—237— 



The: Story of a Century. 



ing such view concerning any Old Testament book 
hold also to their faith in Jesus Christ, and manifest 
their loyalty to him in their faith and service, we 
have no right to pronounce them infidel, or to 
exclude them from our fellowship, because we do not 
know how they harmonize their views of the Old 
•Testament Scriptures with their faith in the Lord- 
ship of Jesus Christ. At this point some have erred, 
and their error has been a hindrance to our unity 
and our progress. The author of this historical 
sketch, while freely admitting the legitimacy and 
the value of historical criticism, is himself naturally 
a conservative as to the conclusions and results 
of such criticism; but he believes profoundly that 
the failure of our leaders to recognize the Christian 
character and standing of men among us who accept 
conclusions within the limitations above indicated, 
would prove disastrous to our plea for unity. We 
do not anticipate, however, that any such policy 
will prevail. If our religious movement does not 
mean liberty to think freely on all the great ques- 
tions of the Bible and of Christianity, within the 
limitations of loyal faith, it means nothing, and our 
existence is without justification. The whole diffi- 
culty here, as we have already intimated, is the 
difficulty of living up to our own high standard. If 
any one thinks that loyalty to Christ requires him to 
exact other terms of fellowship of his brethren than 

—238— 



The: Story of a Century. 

faith in Jesus Christ and loyalty to him, he has a 
right to make his creed and to advocate it. But he 
has no right to do so in the name of the Reforma- 
tion, which bases its right to be, and its plea for 
unity, on the very principle he has repudiated. 

VI. THE CHIEF OBSTACLE. 

Of course, the chief hindrance to the progress of 
the movement, as it is the chief hindrance to the 
progress of every true and righteous cause, is the 
failure of its advocates to exemplify more perfectly 
the principles which they teach. As those seeking 
to restore New Testament Christianity, the advo- 
cates of this Reformation are under the most solemn 
obligations to manifest the spirit and temper of 
Christ, and to make their daily conduct comport 
with his teaching. The New Testament inculcates 
the most liberal Christian giving. We have not 
always given as the Lord has prospered us. It re- 
quires unity and co-operation in every good work. 
Many of our churches and individual members, and 
even ministers, have stood aloof from the co-opera- 
tive movements of the brotherhood. It inculcates a 
brotherly love that prevails over mere differences of 
opinion, while we have often quarreled with each 
other over such differences. It requires a faith that 
subordinates all material interests to the kingdom of 
God and its righteousness; but, alas, the kingdom of 

—239— 



Thi Story :»f a Century. 

God has often been allowed tc languish for support 

while we have been linen: : :; material gain. In 
a word, like most other reh 5ts, we have often 

given m::e emphasis to sound dicrrine than to 
ind living, and we have too often been more 
zealous for soundness in :ai:h than soundness in 
charity, which is greater than faith 



—i^;— 






CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Remedy. 



"It is faith which mates a Christian; 
and when the Christian attitude of the 
sou. to Christ is found, it must be free to 
raise its own problems and to work out 
its own solutions. This is the point at 
which ' broad' churchism is in the right 
against an evangelical Christianity which 
has not learned to distinguish between its 
faith — in which it is unassailable — and 
inherited forms of doctrine which have 
been unreflectingly identified with it. 
ISTatural as such identification may be, and 
painful as it may be to separate in thought 
things which have coalesced in strong and 
sacred feelings there is nothing more cer- 
tain than that the distinction must be rec- 
ognized if evangelical Christians are to 
maintain their intellectual integrity, ard 
preach the Gospel in a world which is in- 
tellectually free. We are bcund to Christ, 
and would see all men so bound; but we 
must leave it to Cnrist to establisn his 
ascendency over men in His own way — by 
the power of what He is and of what He 
has done — and not seek to secure it be- 
forehand by the imposition of chains of our 
forging. " — "Jesus and the Gospel," oy 
James Denmy, D. D, 



—242- 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Remedy. 

We have been indicating some of the things which 
have hindered greater progress in onr Reformatory 
movement in the past. Others might be mentioned, 
bnt these will suffice to explain why a cause that has 
so much to commend it, that makes such a strong 
appeal to the enlightened conscience and judgment 
of men, has not made even more rapid advance than 
it has made within the century of its existence. It 
is most encouraging, however, to know that so far as 
our own faults are concerned, we have within our 
reach the remedy for the weaknesses which, to some 
extent, have marred our work in the past. These 
mistakes have grown out of our youth and inexperi- 
ence. The remedy for these is growth, and already 
many of the impediments which have retarded the 
wheels of our progress have been eliminated by the 
simple law of growth, or spiritual development. 
There is every reason, therefore, for believing that 
other errors which may remain will be disposed of in 
the same way. 

We said above that we have in our possession the 
remedy for past mistakes. What we mean is, that 

—243— 



The Story of a Century. 

there is inherent in the very fundamental principles 
of the movement which we advocate, the law of pro- 
gressive development. In committing ourselves to a 
Person as our divine Leader, and not to a formulated 
and crystallized creed, we have committed ourselves 
to the law of progress. We may go into permanent 
camp on a fixed human creed, but with Christ as our 
creed we must "follow on to know the L,ord. M We 
can not follow Christ as Leader without growing in 
the knowledge of Christ, and, therefore in the know- 
ledge of his religion, and therefore in the power of 
spiritual discernment. The liberty to think, and to 
reach our convictions of duty for ourselves is not more 
inherent in the plea we are making than the obliga- 
tion to grow both in grace and in the knowledge of 
the truth. It has been a commonplace among us 
from the beginning, that Christian life has its periods 
of infancy, youth-time and of mature manhood, just 
as the physical life passes through these stages of 
development. What is true of the individual is true 
of a religious movement as a whole, which must em- 
body the sum-total of the intellectual and spiritual 
development of its several parts. If we fail to recog- 
nize the law of spiritual growth as applicable to 
religious movements as well as to the individual, we 
might well grow pessimistic as to the future. 

Our own history, without going further back in the 
history of the church, will be sufficient to show us 

—244— 






The Story of a Century. 

that a reformatory movement is subject to the same 
law of growth as the individual. What were living 
and vital questions at one period have ceased to be 
such in another period. These questions were out- 
grown. Their solution was reached, and the move- 
ment passed on to meet with new problems, which, 
in their turn, have been settled and relegated to the 
past. What could not have been accomplished at 
one period in our history, because we were not ready 
for it, has been readily accomplished at a later period, 
because we were prepared for that particular task. 
It is amusing but even more instructive, to look back 
and see that obstacles which seemed to rise mountain 
high in our path were but pebbles, after all, and that 
clouds, which at one time, to our untrained vision, 
seemed to permanently eclipse the sun, were but va- 
pors and mists of the earth, which have been dissolved 
and have passed out of existence. No doubt other 
obstacles will appear in our path, and other clouds 
will arise and cause the hearts of some to tremble for 
fear, but we shall either go around the obstacle, or 
move it out of the way, and in due time the clouds will 
be dispersed and leave the bright shining of the sun. 
After all, is this not just what we might have antic- 
ipated if we had only believed Christ's word, "I,o, 
I am with you alway , even unto the end of the world ? } ' 
If he is leading us on to a larger, richer, and better 
life, and to nobler and higher achievements, will he 

—245— 



The: Story of a Century. 

not enable us to meet the difficulties which arise in 
the path of our progress? There is no insuperable 
difficulty to those who are following the moral and 
spiritual leadership of Jesus Christ, and whose sole 
mission is to do His will on earth as it is done in 
heaven. We shall find in Him the solution of all the 
new questions that may arise, and the power to ad- 
just ourselves to the changing conditions of the world , 
with the passing years. It is not by cowardly refusing 
to go forward, for fear of difficulties and dangers, that 
we are to realize our mission, but in heroically follow- 
ing Him, and in his strength combating w r hatever 
foes may arise to impede our progress. The advo- 
cates of a fixed human creed may go into permanent 
camp and fortify themselves to defend their position; 
but those who make the Living Chnst their only 
creed are bound to follow Him into whatever new 
fields of service or wider ranges of thought He may 
lead. 

In other words, open-mindedness to the truth, the 
willingness to receive new truth, the humility that 
recognizes the limitations of our knowledge, the 
eagerness to know all that God would teach us — this 
is the remedy for all our imperfections and errors in 
judgment, as it is the prophecy of an ever-bright- 
ening career of usefulness for any man or movement 
striving to reach the higher ideals. A continuous 
reformation, adjusting itself to the varying conditions 

—246— 



The: Story of a Century, 

and needs of the world, ours must be, or it must de- 
cay and cease to be a Reformation at all, becoming 
a monument rather than a movement. We need not 
to be seriously disturbed over this or that mistake, 
for "to err is human"; but we may well be alarmed 
at any tendency to shut our eyes and close our hearts 
to the increasing light which God is shedding upon 
His work and upon His Word. Nothing else, except 
downright moral failure, is so fatal to the fortunes of 
a religious reformation as the tendency to crystallize 
its convictions of truth into a fixed and unchanging 
creed, and the refusal to follow the truth as God gives 
us to see the truth. 

But let us make no mistake here. The progress of 
which we speak, and which has in it the remedy for 
the evils which afflict our own religious movement 
and the church universal, is not the result of mere 
intellectual development, or the product of the unaided 
human mind working out the great questions which 
may arise. On the contrary, real progress in spiritual 
growth can only come through a deeper and truer 
knowledge of Jesus Christ, and this knowledge comes 
only through the presence of the indwelling Spirit of 
God in the church and in the hearts of all true believ- 
ers. Jesus said, "I have yet many things to say unto 
you, but ye can not bear them now. Howbeit, when 
he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you 
into all the truth. ... He shall glorify me; for He 

—247— 



The Story of a Century. 

shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you. n 
(John 16:12-14.) Here is the true secret of all real 
progress in Christianity. Jesus was not able to com 
municate all the truth to his disciples which he saw 
they would need in the coming days, because they 
were not able at the time to receive it. Here is a 
clear recognition of the law of growth. He promised, 
however, to send His Spirit to dwell in his followers, 
and to communicate to them an ever-deepening 
knowledge of his glory. It was through this better 
knowledge of Christ that they were to be able to meet 
all the difficult questions of their time, just as it is 
through a better knowledge of Christ that we shall 
be able to meet all the questions that may arise in 
our day. It is not in the wisdom of this world to 
lead the church into the true path of progress. Only 
Jesus Christ himself can do that, and he does it by 
his personal presence, as the Holy Spirit, in the 
church. 

Much that is called progress is mere change, — a 
change from the old to the new, and may be away 
from the truth instead of into larger truth. All true 
progress is toward Christ and not away from Him — 
toward a better knowledge of His will and a more 
faithful observance of it. 

Is it not plain from these considerations that it is 
only in loyally following Jesus Christ x and in seeking 

— 24S— 



The: Story of a Century. 

the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that we shall con 
tinue to make that safe and sane progress which will 
enable us to adapt our methods, and our message, to 
the needs of each age, and to keep the "unity of the 
Spirit in the bond of peace?" A deeper spiritual life, 
a more vital union with Jesus Christ, and the spirit- 
ual growth which is the necessary result of such a 
union — this is the remedy for all our spiritual ills, 
and the pledge of a triumphant future. 



-249— 



CHAPTER XXV. 
Some Things Accomplished. 



The work of inaugurating and carrying 
forward a religious reformation is among 
the most difficult of enterprises in which 
men engage. The very fact that a reforma- 
tion is necessary implies antagonism to 
existing theories and practices, many of 
which by long usage have come to be re- 
garded as sacred. That an attempt to cor- 
rect abuses and errors in the Church should 
itself be misconceived and misrepresented 
is inevitable, as human nature is constituted. 
So that not only is the natural inertia in 
religious matters to be overcome, but deter- 
mined opposition, often sincere and some- 
times unscrupulous. Besides, there are the 
mistakes of untrained and ill-informed ad- 
vocates which for a time form a serious 
hindrance to a new movement. That the 
Reformation urged by the Disciples should 
have gained the strength and influence which 
it has to-day, in spite of these facts, is the 
strongest evidence that it possesses inherent 
elements of power, and is indeed one of 
the great providential movements within 
the Church, which owes its existence to the 
immanent Spirit of God working in loyal 
hearts for the extension of Christ's king- 
dom in the world, 



-252— 



CHAPTER XXV. 
Some Things Accomplished. 

A hundred years is a short period in the life of a 
great religious movement. In this brief period, how- 
ever, it is believed that some things worth while 
have been accomplished, and a brief resume of this 
will be in order here. 

i. The Reformation of the nineteenth century 
has found itself. This is no small achievement. It 
is one thing to see clearly and declare boldly a few 
general guiding principles which ought to be applied 
to the work of religious reform. It is quite another, 
and far more difficult, undertaking to practically ap- 
ply these principles to actual conditions and to ex- 
isting problems in the religious world. Of course, 
the leaders in this movement did not at first compre- 
hend all that was involved in the principles set forth 
in the Declaration and Address. It takes time even 
for the greatest minds to free themselves from the do- 
minion of erroneous conclusions and prejudices of 
earlier years so as to be free to see the truth, to re- 
ceive it and to adjust it to whatever convictions of 
truth have been previously received. In saying that 

—253— 



The Story of a Century. 

our religious movement has found itself, it is not 
meant that it has mastered all religious truth, but 
simply that it has come to see what is involved in its 
avowed principles, so far as existing conditions are 
concerned. It has learned, among other things, that 
it came not to destroy previous reformations, but to 
fulfill them; that it is not to be an Ishmaelite, whose 
hand is against the hand of every other man, but a 
brother and fellow- helper of all who love the L,ord 
Jesus, and are seeking to know the truth which He 
was and which He taught; that it has not attained 
to perfection of knowledge or practice, but having 
been called of God to witness to certain great truths 
and principles, vital to the needs of its time, it would 
bear this message in love and humility, being a fel- 
low-student with all other lovers of truth in seeking 
a deeper and wider knowledge of the kingdom of 
God. It has found its true relationship with other 
followers of Christ, and has come to see that its mis- 
sion can only be fulfilled in fellowship and co-opera- 
tion with other religious bodies, in so far as this is 
practicable under existing conditions. 

2. It has made clear to itself, and to many others, 
that its message of Christian union is the great truth 
for the time that needs emphasis, and that such 
union can only be realized by a return to Jesus Christ 
as the sole foundation of our faith, and of obedience 
to his simple requirements as the sole test of Chris- 

—254— 



The: Story of a Century. 

tian fellowship. That much credit is due it for the 
great emphasis that is being given to-day to the sub- 
ject of Christian union and of co-operation, no can- 
did and intelligent mind will deny. 

3. It has demonstrated the practicability of main- 
taining existence and progress as a religious move- 
ment without a written or authoritative rule of faith 
and practice, other than the New Testament, and 
without any other creed or confession of faith than 
that on which Jesus said he would build his church 
—the Christhood and divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, 
— and without the use of other than scriptural 
names and designations which are applicable to all 
believers in Christ. 

4„ It has demonstrated not only the practicability, 
but the vast superiority of the New Testament method 
of evangelism, by returning to the practice of meth- 
ods followed by the apostles both in preaching Christ 
and proclaiming terms of reconciliation with him. 

5. It has done much to magnify the Word of 
God, and to promote Bible study, by its emphasis 011 
the Holy Scriptures as the sole authority in religion. 

6. It has restored the two ordinances — baptism 
and the Lord's Supper — to their original and right- 
ful place in the church, and given them a new beauty 
and significance altogether consistent with the most 
spiritual conception of Christianity. 

—255— 



The Story of a Century. 

7. It has demonstrated the practicability of pro- 
moting co-operation among local churches in mis- 
sionary work, both at home and abroad, by the co- 
hesive power of a common faith and a common love, 
without the binding authority of a human creed. 

8. It has harmonized the principle of loyalty to 
Christ with the greatest freedom of thought and in- 
vestigation, by distinguishing between faith and 
opinion, and has thus demonstrated the practica- 
bility of Christian union without the sacrifice of 
either loyalty or liberty, but by marrying them in a 
happy union. Honoring as it does the name and 
memory of Mr. Campbell, because of his ability 
and of his consecration to a great providential mis- 
sion it yet refuses to take his name, or to make his 
teaching the standard of their faith or practice, 
accepting the words of Jesus, "One is your Master 
and all ye are brethren." 

So much in the way of what might be called doc- 
trinal achievement and progress. Looking now in 
the direction of visible and tangible results achieved, 
we may mention the following: 

1. On the basis of fellowship indicated in the 
foregoing, and by the force of the plea for religious 
reform which it has made, more than a million and 
a quarter of adherents have been won to its cause, 
existing in 11,647 free and independent churches 

—256— 



The Story of a Century. 

with 8,904 Sunday-schools, 6,877 ministers, with 
church property valued at nearly $30,000,000. 

2. It has established and has in successful opera- 
tion, twenty-seven colleges, universities and schools 
of lower grade, with more than a thousand minis- 
terial students, with property valued at four million 
dollars and endowment near two million. 

3. It has organized missionary societies for work 
at home and abroad, which last year raised and dis- 
bursed for missions $1, 056, 293. Besides this there 
were raised: 

For Educational buildings and endowment , ......... $311, 984 

For National Benevolent work 132, 30 

For Ministerial Relief 12,550 

It is supporting foreign missions in Africa, China, 
India, Japan, England, Cuba, the Hawaiian Islands, 
the Philippine Islands, Porto Rico, Tibet, Scandi- 
navia, Jamaica and South America, and has erected 
and is supporting colleges, orphanages and hospitals 
in most of these countries. It is only in later years, 
after its many local problems had been solved, that 
the missionary spirit has had opportunity to develop, 
and in this time it has grown rapidly, but we have not 
yet reached anything like the limit of our possibili- 
ties in missionary work. Both the American Chris- 
tian Missionary Society, organized in 1849, an ^ the 
Foreign Christian Missionary Society, organized in 

(17) —257— 



Th£ Story of a Century. 

1875, are growing in strength and usefulness every 
year. 

4. In the Christian Woman's Board of Missions, 
an organization for both home and foreign work, 
which is managed exclusively by the women of our 
churches, an opportunity has been offered to our 
women to promote their own spiritual development 
while co-operating for the redemption of the world. 
Perhaps no more successful missionary organization 
exists than that of our Christian women. The Jun- 
iors are a part of their work, and a generation is 
being trained up for larger missionary service. 

5. The Board of Church Extension, for assisting 
weak churches in erecting suitable houses of wor- 
ship, has become the right hand of our missionary 
work, and is aiming to reach the sum of one million 
dollars in resources by the Centennial. 

6. The National Benevolent Association, coming 
into existence later than the others, has outstripped 
them all in the rapidity of its growth. It has or- 
phanages and homes for the aged and poor in many 
states, and last year raised over $120,000 for its work. 

7. In Christian Endeavor, in inter-denomina- 
tional Bible school work, in the Young Men's and 
Young Women's Christian Associations and in co- 
operation with other religious bodies through the 
"Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in 

—258— 



The; Story of a CenturYo 

America, " this movement has demonstrated its 
catholicity of spirit, its zeal for nnity, and its will- 
ingness to avail itself of every opportunity of mani- 
festing its sympathy with every good word and work. 

8. The Brotherhood Movement, which recently 
has been revived among the churches of the Ref- 
ormation is rallying our men both for work in the 
local churches, and massing their strength for wider 
and more aggressive movements. 

These are some of the things which it is possible 
to mention among the visible achievements that are 
susceptible of tabulation; but no one but God him- 
self knows the unseen influences which have gone 
forth through all these agencies for the world's bet- 
terment, for the quickening of religious faith and 
life, for the unification of the body of Christ, and for 
the complete triumph of Christianity in the world. 



— 259— 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Some Unfinished Tasks. 



Not that I have already obtained, or am 
already made perfect: but I press on if so 
be that I may lay hold on that for which 
also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. 
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid 
hold; but one thing 1 do, forgetting the 
things which are behind, and stretching for- 
ward to the things which are before, 1 
press on toward the goal unto the prize of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. — 
Philippians 3:17.-14. 



-262- 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
Some Unfinished Tasks. 

When any religious movement reaches the conclu- 
sion that it has mastered all truth and has accom- 
plished the work it was intended to accomplish, its 
mission, of course, is ended. Happily no such feel- 
ing exists, at least among the representative men of 
this current Reformation. It is destined always to 
remain a current and not a past Reformation. Its 
principles make this a necessity. What are some of 
the unfinished tasks which loom up into view as we 
are closing the first century of our history, and look- 
ing out into the new century before us? 

i. One of the most important and immediately 
pressing of these unfinished tasks is to permeate the 
whole mass of our membership with the leaven of 
truth and of life wherewith the best element among 
us is already leavened. In other words, it is to bring 
up the whole lagging column into line with our best 
and most representative ministers and members, 
churches and institutions. No religious body can 
afford to disregard those who are bringing up the 
rear, and who, by reason of education, temperament, 

—263— 



The: Story of a Century. 

or environment, are unable to make as rapid progress 
as others. We must seek to imbue all our churches 
and ministers with the same enthusiasm for missions, 
for education, and for benevolence, which now ani- 
mates our very best members, ministers and churches. 
We have already a large number of our churches and 
a large proportion of our members enlisted in some 
form of co-operative work for the advancement of the 
kingdom, but we must feel and say, with our Mas- 
ter, that there are other sheep and other flocks which 
are not of this co-operative fold, and they, too, must 
be brought into blessed co-operative union so that 
there shall be one flock and one Shepherd in relation 
to all our national enterprises. This will require time, 
tact, patience and long-suffering, but we must never 
despair of accomplishing it, at least in so far as those 
are concerned who have really felt the power and 
inspiration of the new life in Christ. What we are doing 
to-day is but a tithe of what we might accomplish if 
all our ministers and churches were in line with 
those who are enlisted in this work of advancing the 
kingdom of God. The possibilities of any religious 
movement are seen in the lives and labors of its best 
men. What these have become and are doing, others 
can become and accomplish in the same spirit, and 
under the same great Leader. 

2. "We know in part, and we prophesy in part." 
There are many great and vital parts in God's Word 

—264— 






The: Story of a Cdntury. 

which we apprehend as yet only vaguely, and many 
of the old truths which are familiar to us are des- 
tined to assume new meanings, and new value as we 
grow up to a clearer and deeper apprehension of 
them. There is no perfect theology. We must u fol- 
low on to know the L,ord." We must not close our 
eyes nor our hearts to the new truths which he may 
show us, nor to the new and more satisfactory views 
of old truths which come with our enlarged Christian 
experience. This progress in the knowledge of truth 
will involve a change of emphasis which we must 
not fail to make if we are to keep step with the great 
providential movements of God in the world. There 
is more to be expected from a deeper knowledge of 
the old truths, probably, than from any entirely new 
truths that may come into view. A profounder knowl- 
edge of God in Christ Jesus; a deeper apprehension 
of his love as shown in the incarnation, and in the 
cross, a clearer grasp of the amazing possibilities 
opened up to the believer through the resurrection of 
Christ from the dead; a more vivid realization of our 
obligations to him, and hence a more loyal submis- 
sion to his will in all things, all of which is made 
possible by the possession of the divine Spirit — these 
are the chief sources of power and of progress in the 
coming days. 

3. In order to the completion of the two unfiu- 
shed tasks mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, it 

—265— 



The Story of a Century. 

is absolutely essential that another unfinished task 
receive our immediate, earnest attention. We refer 
to the adequate endowment and equipment of our 
institutions of learning, not alone for the sake of an 
educated ministry, which is vastly important, but for 
the sake of an educated membership in all the pro- 
fessions of life. Any reformation that proposes to be 
continuous in its adjustment to the needs of the world, 
and in its grasp of new situations, is bound to lay 
great emphasis upon Christian education as an essen- 
tial condition of carrying out such a program. This 
fact is so obvious that the mere mention of it here 
would seem to be sufficient. 

4. Not the least of our unfinished tasks is to make 
practical application of the knowledge which we 
have already attained, in our own Christian living 
and to the needs of the world about us. The supreme 
apologetic for the new times, and for the coming 
days, is the life that reflects the image of Jesus 
Christ, and that makes practical application of his 
teaching to all the relationships of life. The religious 
body that can give the best exemplification of the 
life of Jesus Christ in what it is doing for alleviating 
human suffering and sorrow, for bringing about better 
conditions of life for the poor and the neglected, and 
that bears in its body the wounds of self-sacrifice 
received in the service of humanity, is the one whose 

—266— 



The Story of a Century. 

credentials will be undisputed in our time, and, as 
we believe, in the coming times. Hitherto the Ref- 
ormation, during its first century's existence has 
been largely engaged in correcting abuses and errors 
in the religious world, both in doctrine and in prac- 
tice, and in finding and explaining to others its basis 
of unity and fellowship in Christian service. In this 
second century it remains for us to apply this Chris- 
tianity of Christ in the solution of all the problems 
that affect the welfare of mankind. It is for the 
church, and especially for those who claim to be re- 
formers within the church, and restorers of Christ's 
own gospel and methods, to become the leaders in all 
moral and social reforms which look to the better- 
ment of the world. It must make manifest the truth 
that Christianity is for the whole man, and is a reg- 
ulative force in all the relationships of human life — 
personal, social, domestic, political, commercial — as 
well as in those which we think of as religious in 
contrast with the secular. 

5. In reference to Christian life itself, we are com- 
pelled to say, with the apostle, that we are not 
perfect. There is a deeper Christian experience than 
we have yet known. There are heights of Christian 
joy and vision to which we have not yet attained- 
The deepening of the religious life in all our mem. 
bers is one of the great unfinished tasks that lie before 
us. We shall never attain our ideal, but if we are 

—267— 



The: Story of a Century. 

conscious of our imperfections, and can say with Paul 
that with singleness of aim we " press toward the 
mark," we shall make vastly more progress than to 
rest in a state of contentment with our spiritual 
attainments. Nothing is more certain than that this 
need is recognized in these last years as never before, 
and this note is being sounded in our pulpits as never 
before. The solution of many of our problems is to 
be found in our spiritual growth and development. 
This spiritual development can come only through 
Bible study, prayer and actual service for Christ, in 
carrying on his work in the world. 

6. In common with all other Christians we have 
before us the unfinished task of converting the world. 
And what a gigantic task that is! The majority of 
the human race abides yet in pagan darkness. But the 
old ancient barriers of exclusion ere being removed 
between nations, and inter-commerce, rapid inter- 
communication, and the mingling of peoples of all 
nations have done much to bring the whole world 
into close neighborhood, and to make it possible for 
Christianity to measure strength with the pagan 
religions, and to enter upon its mighty conquest. 
We must never lose sight of our responsibility, along 
with other believers in Christ, to carry the light and 
blessing of Christianity to the nations and peoples 
that know not Christ, and are strangers to the bless- 
ings of the Gospel. 

—268— 



The: Story of a Century. 

7. The movement has not yet realized the dream 
of its fathers in bringing about the unity of the people 
of God. It must never turn aside from this unfin- 
ished task. It is not laboring alone to-day, as in the 
beginning, but other mighty advocates have come 
upon the field to plead the same gracious cause. 
There is danger that this fact, instead of encourag- 
ing us to press on with the good work, may cause 
many to turn aside because the work is no longer 
distinctly our own; and because, perchance, the union 
for which we have long prayed and labored is not 
coming in the precise way we had anticipated. 
Jesus was crucified by those who were expecting the 
Messiah, but who did not accept him as the Messiah, 
because he did not come in the way in which they 
had expected he would come. L,et us beware that 
we do not crucify him afresh by refusing our appre- 
ciation of, and co-operation with, all movements 
which are honestly seeking to bring the divided 
forces of Christ into closer fellowship with each other 
and into more effective co-operation in his service. 

These are great and difficult tasks which are yet 
to be completed, but we doubt not that under the 
leadership of Him whom alone we acknowledge as 
I^ord and Christ, and who has been our help in the 
past, we shall be able to come off more than con- 
querors in carrying out the mission which he has 
given to us in the world. 

—269— 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
The; Outlook. 



"In spit©, however, of all their respon- 
sibilities and obligations to the past — in 
spite of the duty incumbent on *them to 
conserve its intellectual as well as its moral 
attainments — the pressure put upon the 
churches, both from without and from with- 
in, to recognize the claims of intellectual 
liberty, is rapidly becoming irresistible- 
Christian people, who are consciously at one 
in their attitude to Christ and in their sense 
of obligation to Him, see that they are kept 
in different communions, and incapacitated 
from co-operation in work and worship, be- 
cause they have inherited different theolog,- 
ical traditions to which they are assumed to 
be bound. Without entering into any dis- 
cussion of what these theological traditions 
— call them creeds, confessions, testimonies', 
or whatever else — are worth, they feel in 
their souls that they are not bound to them, 
and ought not to be, with the same kind of 
bond which secures their allegiance to 
Christ. For the sake of getting nearer to 
those who share this allegiance, and co- 
operating with them in the service of the 
Lord who holds their hearts, they contem- 
plate with more equanimity the slackening 
or dissolution of the bonds which attach 
them to the theology, or, if we prefer to 
call it so, the Christian thought of the 
past." — '* Jesus and the Gospel," by James 
Benney, D, D t 



—272- 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
The Outlook. 

Such is the origin, history and achievements of 
the restoration movement of the Campbells, very 
briefly and inadequately stated. If it be a providen- 
tial movement, we may rest assured that it is only 
in the beginnings of its history, and that vastly 
greater things are to be accomplished in the coming 
years than have yet been realized. But just what 
particular form its activities will assume, no human 
mind can forecast. As the Lutheran reformation of 
the sixteenth century is represented in the common 
Protestantism of our day, so it is not unlikely, indeed, 
it is extremely probable, that the Campbellian re- 
formation of the nineteenth century is to be repre- 
sented more and more in the future in the great 
Protestant evangelical bodies of Christendom. Even 
now, it is to be estimated less as a distinct move- 
ment than as a permeating influence which has more 
or less affected the religious thought and life of our 
times. 

What is the outlook, at the close of a century, of 
this religious movement as regards the realization of 

(18) —273— 



The Story of a Century. 

its dream of a united Church? Some facts stand out 
with such distinctness in the present religious situa- 
tion that only the blind can fail to see them. L,et 
us mention a few of these facts as forming the basis 
of the present outlook: 

i . The "1 old antagonisms and the bitter party 
spirit; which at one time prevailed between different 
religious bodies, have largely ceased to exist. The 
walls of separation between the different Protestant 
bodies are much less formidable than they used to 
be, and people pass from one to another with a free- 
dom that was once unknown. 

2. This new feeling of fraternity among all the 
followers of our Lord Jesus Christ is the result, not 
of indifference to religious truth, as some assert, but 
to a growing unity of thought and feeling touching 
the great fundamental and essential truths of Chris- 
tianity. The freedom of intercourse, and of inter- 
communication, and of interdenominational fellow- 
ship and co-operation, which has been on the in- 
crease for many years, has produced this growing 
unity of faith and feeling. There has also been great 
progress in the distinction between matters which 
are vital and essential in the religious faith, and 
those which are incidental and non-essential. 

3. There is manifest to-day a dissatisfaction 
and discontent in the religious world with its pres- 
ent condition, and a desire for something better, 

—274— 



The: Story of a Century. 

which are prophetic of future changes. Very few, 
if any, well-informed people feel that the church is 
to-day in a normal condition, and prepared to do the 
work which Christ expects it to do. All thoughtful 
men seem to recognize the fact that it is now in a 
transition state, passing from the older Protestant- 
ism of mutual antagonisms to the newer Catholicism, 
in which both liberty and unity are to be conserved, 
and Christian fellowship shall be coextensive with 
Christian discipleship, and in which the erstwhile 
hostile tribes of Protestantism shall become allies, 
making common cause for the advancement of the 
kingdom of God, and its triumph in the world. 

4. Christ is coming to his own in these last 
days. As Principal Fairbairn pointed out, a few 
years ago, there is a "new feeling" for Christ in our 
day. This "new feeling" grows out of a clearer rec- 
ognition of his rightful place, both in theology and 
in the church. It is this new feeling for Christ, this 
clearer recognition of his divine authority and sole 
leadership, that holds the key to the future. He is 
to solve all of our problems for us, and he is to lead 
us out of our divisions, strifes and rivalries, into unity 
and co-operation for the salvation of the world. There 
is no other fact that gives the church so bright an 
outlook as this growing ascendency of Christ in the 
thought and life of men. 

—275— 



The Story of a Century. 

5. The growing unity of the world, brought 
about by the means of rapid intercommunication be- 
tween nations, is bringing Christianity into contact 
with the various heathen religions as never before. 
The world, spanned by railroads and steamships, and 
bound together by submarine cables, is too small to 
be occupied very long jointly by heathenism and 
Christianity. The contest is now on. One or the 
other must go down in the struggle, and all history 
teaches that Christianity is to be the triumphant 
force. But when the ethnic religions have gone 
down before Christianity, the age-long foe of religion, 
godlessness, will remain, and then comes the great 
conflict between the forces of righteousness under 
Christ and the forces of evil under Satan. We are 
now in the beginnings of this great conflict. It is 
the nascent consciousness of this fact that is drawing 
Christians of different names and creeds together in 
preparation for the mighty struggle. Antagonistic 
religions can not coexist in the same civilization. 
Christianity affects too profoundly the very structure 
of our political, social, commercial and domestic life 
to permit it to dwell in peace with the ethnic relig- 
ions, or with atheism, which is the negation of the 
claims of all religion. It alone possesses those ele- 
ments of universality which fit it for a universal re- 
ligion, and it is prepared to welcome any contest 

—276— 



The: Story of a Century. 

that will enable it to measure strength with oppos- 
ing religions. 

CONCLUSION. 

The religious movement whose history we have 
briefly sketched, falls into beautiful harmony with 
these tendencies, and has itself been a factor in bring- 
ing them about. What the times demand, what the 
world needs, what the exigencies of the coming con- 
flict call for, is a church united under the sole lead- 
ership of Jesus Christ, clearly distinguishing between 
the fundamentals and the incidentals of Christianity, 
and uniting its strength in a common warfare against 
opposing forces. To bring the church into this con- 
dition of unity and of preparation for the great con- 
flict, has been the steadfast purpose of the reforma- 
tion of the nineteenth century. With the tenden- 
cies of the age such as we have described, such a 
movement, if true to its aim and to the spirit of its 
founders, and especially if true to Him whom alone 
they acknowledge as L,eader, must, in the very na- 
ture of things, have before it a triumphant career. 
If it please God that more and more in the future 
the things for which we have stood as a religious 
movement shall be taken up by others until our own 
plea shall have become less distinctive than it once 
was, let us have the grace and humility to rejoice at 
this fact, and count it a sufficient honor to have been 
pioneers in a cause so worthy as to have enlisted the 

—277— 



The) Story of a Century. 

sympathies and commanded the approval and co- 
operation of all true and faithful followers of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

What the second century will reveal as to the fu- 
ture of this Reformation and of the Church universal, 
none but God can foresee. We can not doubt, how- 
ever, that under God's guidance and blessing, it is 
to go forward with increasing power and usefulness. 
It is ours to serve God and our generation according 
to the best light we have, and to transmit to those 
who shall come after us the task of carrying forward 
toward completion the great work whose beginnings 
only we have been able to see. In a little while we 
shall assemble in a national convention at Pittsburg, 
to celebrate the completion of the first century of our 
history. Let us pray that it may also be the begin- 
ning of a second century that shall be marked by a 
greater consecration and devotion to Him who loved 
the Church and gave himself for it, and who prayed 
for its unity in Him. To His name be glory and 
honor and dominion, both now and evermore! 



—278— 



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